The importance and impact of discoveries about neural crest fates

TL;DR

This review highlights the historical and current significance of neural crest research, emphasizing its role in understanding development, disease, and evolution through molecular, migratory, and tissue studies.

Contribution

It synthesizes historical and recent findings on neural crest cells, emphasizing their importance in development, disease, and evolutionary biology.

Findings

Neural crest cells are crucial for vertebrate development.

Molecular properties and migratory capacities of neural crest cells are key to their functions.

Research on neural crest impacts understanding of congenital malformations and cancers.

Abstract

We review here some of the historical highlights in exploratory studies of the vertebrate embryonic structure known as the neural crest. The study of the molecular properties of the cells that it produces, their migratory capacities and plasticity, and the still-growing list of tissues that depend on their presence for form and function, continue to enrich our understanding of congenital malformations, pediatric cancers but also of evolutionary biology.