Neural Floor Plate

The floor plate is a structure integral to the developing nervous system of vertebrate organisms.
Neural floor plate. After closure the neural tube forms a basal or floor plate and a roof or alar plate in response to the combined effects of shh and factors including bmp4 secreted by the roof plate. Handbook of clinical neurology 2012. The floor plate is the key attachment point around which the neural folds can elevate as its cells acquire a pyramidal shape due to contraction of actin like microfilaments at their apices. Although recent studies have identified the factors that regulate mesda neuron development the mechanisms underlying mesda neuron specification are not fully understood.
Recently it has been suggested that mesencephalic floor plate fp cells acquire neural progenitor characteristics to generate mesda neurons. Netrin1 has been proposed to act from the floor plate fp as a long range diffusible chemoattractant for commissural axons in the embryonic spinal cord. These experiments however do not challenge the fact that under experimental conditions i e in cultured explants of the neural plate the expression of hnf3β and of other floor plate markers can be elicited in the lateral walls of the neural plate neural tube by the notochord the floor plate or the shh n peptide 19 21 38 40. T he floor plate is a transient embryonic organizing center located at the ventral midline of the neural tube that profoundly influences the development of the vertebrate central nervous system.
However netrin1 mrna and protein are also present in neural progenitors within the ventricular zone vz raising the question of which source of netrin1 promotes ventrally directed axon growth. After sonic hedgehog shh signalling from the notochord induces its formation the floor plate of the incipient neural tube also secretes shh. The floor plate is a set of epithelial cells present in the ventral midline of the neural tube in vertebrates 1 that seems to have an important role in the developmental patterning 2 of central. However netrin1 mrna and protein are also present in neural progenitors within the ventricular zone vz raising the question of which source of netrin1 promotes ventrally directed axon growth.
The onset of cdo expression at the ventral midline of the neural tube occurs at the same time as floor plate specification fig.