Journal article
Simple rules for a "simple" nervous system? Molecular and biomathematical approaches to enteric nervous system formation and malformation
DF Newgreen, S Dufour, MJ Howard, KA Landman
Developmental Biology | Published : 2013
Abstract
We review morphogenesis of the enteric nervous system from migratory neural crest cells, and defects of this process such as Hirschsprung disease, centering on cell motility and assembly, and cell adhesion and extracellular matrix molecules, along with cell proliferation and growth factors. We then review continuum and agent-based (cellular automata) models with rules of cell movement and logistical proliferation. Both movement and proliferation at the individual cell level are modeled with stochastic components from which stereotyped outcomes emerge at the population level. These models reproduced the wave-like colonization of the intestine by enteric neural crest cells, and several new pro..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank their colleagues Ben Binder, Nadege Bondurand, Marie Breau, Florence Broders-Bondon, Jeff Craig, Hideki Enomoto, Anthony Fernando, Emily Hackett-Jones, Barry Hughes, Jun Lei, Mick Mariani, Ben Rollo, Johanna Simkin, Matthew Simpson, Lincon Stamp, Heather Young and Dongcheng Zhang for information, for alerting us to references we had overlooked, and for discussions. Anonymous reviewers also made valuable suggestions and several references. DFN acknowledges that the biomathematical approaches reviewed here owe a 40-year debt to discussions with the late Ian Allan. This work was supported by ARC and NHMRC grants. KAL is an ARC Professorial Fellow. MCRI facilities are supported by the Victorian Governments Operational Infrastructure Support Program.