This finding raises the intriguing possibility that regulated degradative trafficking might be crucial for the ultimate correct somal positioning in the cortical plate. With ex vivo and in vivo experiments, McConnell and colleagues

demonstrated that endocytosis S3I-201 manufacturer is essential for neuronal migration (Shieh et al., 2011). They found that active endocytosis takes place preferentially in the leading process close to the soma and coincides with an enlarged cytoplasmic swelling of the leading process. Inhibition of endocytosis was shown to increase levels of integrins and lead to defects in rear detachments in migrating neurons. This is in agreement with insights gained from other migratory cells over many years (Huttenlocher and Horwitz, 2011), but was here shown beautifully for migratory neurons. Crucial roles of a number of integrins in neuronal migration in vivo have been described over the years from knockout mouse models (Schmid et al., 2004 and Stanco et al., 2009). Evidence from in vitro studies has implicated integrin endocytosis (coordinately with L1; Thelen et al., 2002) in migratory neurons. Future studies will shed more light on the question of whether rab5- and rab11-dependent endocytic MDV3100 events are specifically required for N-cadherin-mediated steps and whether integrin endocytosis is required for neuronal migratory events in a rab-dependent manner. The current experiments in this field have focused

our attention on the importance of regulating receptor levels via endocytosis in order to regulate adhesive strength and to obtain correct morphology and migratory patterns. It is likely that most of the mechanisms that have been discovered for growth cone guidance, including ligand-triggered spatially over precise exo- and endocytosis, extensive regulated signaling from endosomes, and differential recycling of multiple receptors, are all operative during neuronal migration as well. Given the obvious importance of the correct morphology of the leading process in migrating neurons, the frequent defects in correct migration coinciding with aberrant branching of the leading process, and the complex relationship between

migration, fate, and morphology at different stages of neurogenesis and migration, it will be fascinating to uncover how membrane trafficking of particular receptors and signaling control of trafficking contributes to these complex neurodevelopmental behaviors. Not all receptors capable of endocytosis are endocytosed constitutively at all times and in all places. Rather, different receptors/cargos behave in highly specific and regulated ways. Even cargos that use the clathrin adaptor AP-2 for endocytosis are subject to further regulation via other protein interactions. A great example of this is numb, an evolutionarily conserved protein originally identified as a cell fate determinant during peripheral and CNS development in Drosophila ( Uemura et al., 1989).