Role of CRMP-2 in neuronal polarization

The neuron is one of the most dramatic examples of a polarized cell forming two distinctive types of neurites, an axon and dendrites. Neuronal polarization begins in a symmetric cell with the elongation of one of the immature neurites as an axon. Polarization enables the two types of neurites to perform different functions: sending and receiving electrical signals in a vectorial fashion. Although researchers are accumulating a catalog of structural, molecular, and functional differences between axons and dendrites, the mechanisms involved in the establishment of neuronal polarity are not well understood.