In jawed vertebrates, oligodendrocytes (OLs) are the myelin-producing glial cells responsible for ensheathment of axons within the central nervous system and are also crucial for remyelination following injury or disease. Olig2 is a crucial factor in the specification and differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) that give rise to mature, myelin-producing OLs in the developing a...

Previous lineage analyses have shown that retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) are multipotent throughout development, and expression-profiling studies have shown a great deal of molecular heterogeneity among RPCs. To determine if the molecular heterogeneity predicts that an RPC will produce particular types of progeny, clonal lineage analysis was used to investigate the progeny of a subset of RPCs,...

The HMG-domain transcription factor Sox10 is expressed throughout oligodendrocyte development and is an important component of the transcriptional regulatory network in these myelin-forming CNS glia. Of the known Sox10 regulatory regions, only the evolutionary conserved U2 enhancer in the distal 5'-flank of the Sox10 gene exhibits oligodendroglial activity. We found that U2 was active in oligod...

Neural stem cell (NSC) differentiation is precisely controlled by a network of transcription factors, which themselves are regulated by extracellular signals (Bertrand, N., D.S. Castro, and F. Guillemot, 2002. Nat. Rev. Neurosci 3:517-530; Shirasaki, R. and S.L. Pfaff, 2002. Annu. Rev. Neurosci 25:251-281). One way that the activity of such transcription factors is controlled is by the regulati...

The helix-loop-helix transcription factor Olig2 is essential for lineage determination of oligodendrocytes. Differentiation of stem cells into oligodendrocytes and transplanting them is a novel strategy for the repair of different demyelination diseases. Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) are of great interest in regenerative medicine due to their potential for repairing damaged tissues. In this st...

Introduction The nerve fibers in central nervous system are surrounded by myelin sheet which is formed by oligodendrocytes. Cell therapy based on oligodendrocytes and their precursors transplantation can hold a promising alternative treatment for myelin sheet repair in demyelinating diseases. Methods Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells (hDPSCs) are noninvasive, autologous and easy available source w...

Schizophrenia may arise from subtle abnormalities in brain development due to alterations in the functions of candidate susceptibility genes such as Disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) and Neuregulin 1 (NRG1). To provide novel insights into the functions of DISC1 in brain development, we mapped the expression of zebrafish disc1 and set out to characterize its role in early embryonic developmen...

BACKGROUND Multiple sclerosis (MS) as an autoimmune disorder is a common disease occurring in central nervous system (CNS) and the remyelination plays a pivotal role in the alleviating neurological impairment in the MS. Catalpol, an effective component extracted from the Chinese herb Radix Rehmanniae, which has been proved protective in cerebral diseases. METHODS To determine the protective e...

Through advances in genome science, we are becoming increasingly aware that tumors that appear identical under the pathologist's microscope can be very different in their genetic composition and clinical behavior. Pediatric embryonal brain tumors share a characteristic histological feature—densely packed sheets of cells with hyperchromatic nuclei and scant cytoplasm. Despite their common appear...

The presence of neural stem cells in the adult brain is currently widely accepted and efforts are made to harness the regenerative potential of these cells. The dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation, and the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the anterior lateral ventricles, are considered the main loci of adult neurogenesis. The rostral migratory stream (RMS) is the structure funneling SVZ prog...