Kuan C Y, Roth K A, Flavell R A, Rakic P
Section of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Trends Neurosci. 2000 Jul;23(7):291-7. doi: 10.1016/s0166-2236(00)01581-2.
Programmed cell death (apoptosis) is an important mechanism that determines the size and shape of the vertebrate nervous system. Recent gene-targeting studies have indicated that homologs of the cell-death pathway in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans have analogous functions in apoptosis in the developing mammalian brain. However, epistatic genetic analysis has revealed that the apoptosis of progenitor cells during early embryonic development and apoptosis of postmitotic neurons at later stage of brain development have distinct roles and mechanisms. These results provide new insight on the significance and mechanism of neural cell death in mammalian brain development.
程序性细胞死亡（凋亡）是决定脊椎动物神经系统大小和形状的重要机制。最近的基因靶向研究表明，线虫秀丽隐杆线虫细胞死亡途径的同源物在发育中的哺乳动物大脑的凋亡中具有类似功能。然而，上位性遗传分析表明，早期胚胎发育过程中祖细胞的凋亡与大脑发育后期有丝分裂后神经元的凋亡具有不同的作用和机制。这些结果为哺乳动物大脑发育中神经细胞死亡的意义和机制提供了新的见解。
