The pattern of avian intramuscular nerve branching is determined by the innervating motoneuron and its level of polysialic acid.

Most skeletal muscles are composed of a heterogeneous population of fast and slow muscle fibers that are selectively innervated during development by fast and slow motoneurons, respectively. It is well recognized that, in both birds and mammals, fast and slow motoneurons have substantially different intramuscular branching patterns, a difference critical for proper motor function. However, the cellular mechanisms regulating these differences in motoneuron branching are unknown. In a previous study, we showed that the fast and slow pattern of intramuscular branching, in a chick muscle containing distinct fast and slow muscle regions, was remarkably similar to normal when formed by foreign motoneurons. Whether this was attributable to some property of the innervating "fast" or "slow" motoneurons or to some property of the developing fast-slow muscle fibers was not determined. To distinguish between these two possibilities, we performed chick-quail hindlimb chimeras to force slow chick plantaris motoneurons to innervate a fast quail plantaris muscle. The pattern of intramuscular nerve branching in the fast plantaris of these chimeras closely resembled the slow branching pattern normally observed in chick slow plantaris muscles. Enzymatic removal of polysialic acid (PSA) from nerve and muscle during normal quail plantaris development dramatically changed the normal fast pattern to more closely resemble a slow pattern. In contrast, removal of PSA from chick plantaris motoneurons and muscle fibers had little effect on the pattern of nerve branching. Together, these results indicate that the pattern of intramuscular nerve branching is determined by the level of PSA on the innervating motoneurons.