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During development, cells become progressively restricted, until they reach their final phenotype. Differentiation was originally thought to be irreversible, but phenotypic plasticity has
been observed in a variety of cell types, for example sympathetic neurones1, the limb blastema2 and some glial cell types3. A detailed description of the individual steps that lead to
expression or reversal of phenotype is essential to understand the molecular events underlying cell differentiation. We examined whether ciliary neurones acquire adrenergic properties when
exposed to a permissive embryonic environment. Cholinergic neurones were selectively labelled with a retrogradely transported marker and injected into chick embryos during active neural
crest migration4. Four to five days after injection, some of the labelled neurones were found in ‘adrenergic sites’ and had developed catecholamine histofluorescence. The cells had thus
accumulated adrenergic neurotransmitters even after differentiation into Cholinergic neurones. This result shows that neurotransmitter plasticity occurs in Cholinergic neurones and suggests
that the neurotransmitter phenotype can be modified by the embryonic environment.
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