Gene Expression in Embryonic Neural Development and Stem Cell Differentiation

The concept of neural induction, i.e. the definition of the neural plate domain in the ectoderm, was first proposed by Spemman and Mangold after the classic experiment in which transplantation of the frog embryo’s dorsal blastopore lip induced a complete neural axis from the acceptor embryo’s ectoderm. Since then, much effort has been made aimed at identify the signals that confer the neural bias to the ectoderm. The resulting picture clearly indicates that neural induction is a multi-step process that requires the interplay of various pathways. The result of neural induction is the definition of a neural plate composed by proliferating neuroepithelial cells expressing pan-neural genes.