| First Author | Heng JI | Year | 2008 |
| Journal | Nature | Volume | 455 |
| Issue | 7209 | Pages | 114-8 |
| PubMed ID | 18690213 | Mgi Jnum | J:139577 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:3808930 | Doi | 10.1038/nature07198 |
| Citation | Heng JI, et al. (2008) Neurogenin 2 controls cortical neuron migration through regulation of Rnd2. Nature 455(7209):114-8 |
| abstractText | Motility is a universal property of newly generated neurons. How cell migration is coordinately regulated with other aspects of neuron production is not well understood. Here we show that the proneural protein neurogenin 2 (Neurog2), which controls neurogenesis in the embryonic cerebral cortex, directly induces the expression of the small GTP-binding protein Rnd2 (ref. 3) in newly generated mouse cortical neurons before they initiate migration. Rnd2 silencing leads to a defect in radial migration of cortical neurons similar to that observed when the Neurog2 gene is deleted. Remarkably, restoring Rnd2 expression in Neurog2-mutant neurons is sufficient to rescue their ability to migrate. Our results identify Rnd2 as a novel essential regulator of neuronal migration in the cerebral cortex and demonstrate that Rnd2 is a major effector of Neurog2 function in the promotion of migration. Thus, a proneural protein controls the complex cellular behaviour of cell migration through a remarkably direct pathway involving the transcriptional activation of a small GTP-binding protein. |
