Located on the ventral midline of the embryonic neural tube, the floor plate is a specialized glial structure that spans the anteroposterior axis from the midbrain to the tail regions.

It has been shown that the floor plate is conserved among vertebrates, such as zebrafish and mice, with homologous structures in invertebrates such as the fruit fly Drosophila and the nematode C. elegans.

Functionally, the structure serves as an organizer to ventralize tissues in the embryo as well as to guide neuronal positioning and differentiation along the dorsoventral axis of the neural tube.

[1][2][3] Induction of the floor plate during embryogenesis of vertebrate embryos has been studied extensively in chick and zebrafish and occurs as a result of a complex signaling network among tissues, the details of which have yet to be fully refined.

This is supported experimentally in chick, in which floor plate induction, as well as associative ventral nervous tissue differentiation, is mediated by the secreted signaling molecule sonic hedgehog (Shh).

Later in development during neurulation, extended contact and interaction between notochord and fated floor plate cells causes differentiation, suggesting a cooperative effect between Nodal and Shh signaling.

In vertebrates, this choice is mediated by the floor plate, and enables the embryo to develop successful left and right body halves with respect to nervous tissue.

[7] In the central nervous system (CNS), overall cell fate mapping is typically directed by the sonic hedgehog (Shh) morphogen signaling pathway.

In the spinal cord, Shh is directed by both the notochord and floor plate regions which ultimately drives the organization of neural and glial progenitor populations.

Recently, there have been efforts to use conditional mutagenesis to selectively inactivate the Shh pathway specifically in the FP region to identify different roles of molecules involved in oligodendrocyte cell fate.

If this area of the spinal cord becomes injured, there could be serious complications to all contributing functions of this region, namely limited proliferation and production of the glial cells responsible for myelination and phagocytosis in the CNS.