The c-erbA proto-oncogenes encode nuclear receptors for thyroid hormone (T3), a hormone intimately involved in mammalian brain maturation. To study thyroid hormone receptor (TR) action on neuronal cells in vitro, we expressed the chicken c-erbA/TR alpha-1 as well as its oncogenic variant v-erbA in the adrenal medulla progenitor cell line PC12. In the absence of T3, exogenous TR alpha-1 inhibits...

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) can induce neurogenesis and recovery from brain diseases. However, the exact mechanisms of the beneficial effects of PUFAs have not been conclusively described. We recently reported that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) induced neuronal differentiation by decreasing Hes1 expression and increasing p27(kip1) expression, which causes cell cycle arrest in neural stem c...

The inverse F-BAR (IF-BAR) domain proteins srGAP1, srGAP2 and srGAP3 are implicated in neuronal development and may be linked to mental retardation, schizophrenia and seizure. A partially overlapping expression pattern and highly similar protein structures indicate a functional redundancy of srGAPs in neuronal development. Our previous study suggests that srGAP3 negatively regulates neuronal di...

during early neurogenesis, the floor plate plays an essential role(s) in the differentiation of the ventral portion of neural tube. in this study, we detected the specific distribution of unique glycoconjugate during the floor plate differentiation. formalin fixed paraffin sections of balb/c mice (10-14 embryonic days) were processed for histochemical studies using horseradish peroxidase-labell...

Gangliosides are complex glycosphingolipids that are the major component of cytoplasmic cell membranes, and play a role in the control of biological processes. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) have received considerable attention as alternative sources of adult stem cells because of their potential to differentiate into multiple cell lineages. In this study, we focus on various functional r...

Exosomes deliver functional proteins and genetic materials to neighboring cells, and have potential applications for tissue regeneration. One possible mechanism of exosome-promoted tissue regeneration is through the delivery of microRNA (miRNA). In this study, we hypothesized that exosomes derived from neuronal progenitor cells contain miRNAs that promote neuronal differentiation. We treated me...

In this study, we describe a role for the mammalian Numb-interacting protein 1 (Nip1) in regulation of neuronal differentiation in stem cells. The expression of Nip1 was detected in the developing mouse brain, embryonic stem cells, primary neuronal stem cells, and retinoic acid-treated P19 embryonal carcinoma cells. The highest expression of Nip1 was observed in undifferentiated neuronal stem c...

Bromodomain-containing protein 2 (Brd2) is a BET family chromatin adaptor required for expression of cell-cycle-associated genes and therefore involved in cell cycle progression. Brd2 is expressed in proliferating neuronal progenitors, displays cell-cycle-stimulating activity and, when overexpressed, impairs neuronal differentiation. Paradoxically, Brd2 is also detected in differentiating neuro...