| First Author | Ju J | Year | 2016 |
| Journal | Sci Rep | Volume | 6 |
| Pages | 30711 | PubMed ID | 27469598 |
| Mgi Jnum | J:259920 | Mgi Id | MGI:6102174 |
| Doi | 10.1038/srep30711 | Citation | Ju J, et al. (2016) Olig2 regulates Purkinje cell generation in the early developing mouse cerebellum. Sci Rep 6:30711 |
| abstractText | The oligodendrocyte transcription factor Olig2 plays a crucial role in the neurogenesis of both spinal cord and brain. In the cerebellum, deletion of both Olig2 and Olig1 results in impaired genesis of Purkinje cells (PCs) and Pax2(+) interneurons. Here, we perform an independent study to show that Olig2 protein is transiently expressed in the cerebellar ventricular zone (VZ) during a period when PCs are specified. Further analyses demonstrate that Olig2 is expressed in both cerebellar VZ progenitors and early-born neurons. In addition, unlike in the ganglionic eminence of the embryonic forebrain where Olig2 is mostly expressed in proliferating progenitors, Olig2(+) cells in the cerebellar VZ are in the process of leaving the cell cycle and differentiating into postmitotic neurons. Functionally, deletion of Olig2 alone results in a preferential reduction of PCs in the cerebellum, which is likely mediated by decreased neuronal generation from their cerebellar VZ progenitors. Furthermore, our long-term lineage tracing experiments show that cerebellar Olig gene-expressing progenitors produce PCs but rarely Pax2(+) interneurons in the developing cerebellum, which opposes the "temporal identity transition" model of the cerebellar VZ progenitors stating that majority of Pax2(+) interneuron progenitors are transitioned from Olig2(+) PC progenitors. |
