Semaphorin 3D (SEMA3D)

Liu and Halloran (2005) investigated differential axon guidance in zebrafish Rohon-Beard sensory neurons, which extend central axon branches in the spinal cord and peripheral axons to the epidermis. They found that Sema3d expressed at the dorsal spinal cord midline appeared to repel the peripheral axons out of the spinal cord. Sema3d knockdown reduced the number of peripheral axons. Ectopic expression of Sema3d repelled and induced branching of peripheral axons, but it had no effect on central axons from the same neurons. Using in situ hybridization, Jin et al. (2006) found that Sema3d was expressed in the cardiac cushion regions of developing chick heart, both in the mesenchymal cells and epithelial cells in the endocardial layer, during the period of cardiac remodeling. Sema3d was also expressed in the tips of ventricular trabeculae.