Regulation of cellular differentiation by tissue specific transcription factor

Tissue specific transcription factors play important roles during cellular differentiation. To regulate cellular differentiation, we paid attention to tissue specific basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors. In this study, we tried to regulate expression of tissue specific transcription factor for induction of cellular differentiation. To regulate expression of transcription factor, we constructed electrical stimulation induced artificial gene expression system. Using this system, neural differentiation of neuroblast could be induced by conditional expression of neural bHLH transcription factor NeuroD2 under the control of electrical stimulation.