Development of the spinal nerves in the lamprey: III. Spinal ganglia and dorsal roots in 26-day (13 mm) larvae

Abstract

Serial sections of the trunk and tail of 26-day (13 mm) larval lampreys were examined by light and electron microscopy. Trunk region: Spinal ganglia and ventral nerves are seen alternately along the spinal cord and the notochord in the trunk. Spinal ganglia are located medially in intermyotome spaces with intersegmental blood vessels and send "dorsal nerves" ventrally along the vessels. "Ventral nerves" are seen on the midmedial surface of each myotome. Fibers containing dense-cored vesicles occur in the dorsal root but not in the ventral root. Caudal region: In the caudal one-third of the tail the ventral nerves are formed earlier than spinal ganglia and dorsal nerves. The most caudal (primitive) ventral nerve (root) develops at the 12th myotome from the caudal end of the series of myotomes, the caudalmost ganglion being formed between the 15th and the 14th myotome in a 13-mm larval lamprey. The intimate association of dorsolateral outflow (DLO) fibers (Nakao and Ishizawa: J. Comp. Neurol. 256:356-368, '87b) with neural crest cells (DO cells of Nakao and Ishizawa; ibid.) strongly suggested that these fibers play an important role as the substrate for guiding the cells to form compact cell masses as primitive spinal ganglia. Two types of cell groups are progressively distinguished in primitive spinal ganglia during development. One of them has a light round nucleus with a prominent nucleolus and a large amount of the perinuclear cytoplasm that contains abundant free ribosomes, rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER), numerous Golgi apparatuses, and dense bodies. Cells of the other type are characterized by a dense, flattened nucleus with a small amount of perinuclear cytoplasm that extends as a thin cytoplasmic sheet to surround cells of the other type as a whole, the basal lamina surrounding the whole cell mass. The former type is interpreted as neural cells and the latter satellite cells of the ganglion. Central processes of ganglionic neural cells are assumed to enter the spinal cord along DLO fibers by using them as a substrate to establish the dorsal root. Intersegmental blood vessels develop later than spinal ganglia and peripheral processes extend along the vessels.