Expression data from embryonic day 17 (E17) enteric neural crest-dervied cells (ENCDC) and non-ENCDC

During the later stages of enteric nervous system (ENS) development, enteric neural crest derived cells (ENCDC) that have colonized the bowel must complete differentiating and mature into neurons and glia. This process is controlled by a complex array of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We used microarrays to dermine which genes were differentially expressed in ENCDC versus other cells in the developing bowel. We identified many genes enriched in ENCDC with potential roles in the later stages of ENS development We performed FACS of E17.5 bowel cells from Wnt1-Cre; R26R-EYFP mice to isolate EYFP-positive ENCDC and EYFP-negative non-ENCDC. Microarray analysis was used to compare gene expression in these cell populations to identify ENCDC enriched genes with potential roles in late ENS development