Motor nerves direct the development of the sympathetic nervous system

Abstract

The sympathetic nervous system controls a wide spectrum of bodily functions including operation of vessels, cardiac rhythm, and the "flight or fight response". Sympathetic neurons, which are neural crest-derived, develop in coordination with presynaptic motor nerves extending from the central nervous system (CNS). By using nerve-selective genetic ablations, we revealed that sympathetic ganglia development depends on CNS-derived motor innervation. In the absence of preganglionic motor nerves, trunk sympathetic chain ganglia were fragmented and smaller in size, while cervical ganglia were severely misshapen. Sympathetic neurons were misplaced along sensory fibers and projected towards abnormal paths, in some cases invading the sensory dorsal root ganglia. The misplaced progenitors of sympathoblasts corresponded to the nerve-associated, neural crest-derived Schwann cell precursors (SCPs). Notably, we found that SCPs activate the autonomic marker PHOX2B while migrating along motor nerves towards the region of the dorsal aorta in wildtype embryos, suggesting that SCP differentiate into sympathetic neurons while still nerve-associated in motor-ablated embryos. Ligand-receptor prediction from single cell transcriptomic data coupled with functional studies identified Semaphorin 3A/3F as candidate motor nerve-derived signals influencing neural crest migration along axons. Thus, motor nerves control the placement of sympathoblasts and their subsequent axonal navigation during critical periods of sympathetic chain development.