Ballas Nurit, Mandel Gail
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2005 Oct;15(5):500-6. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2005.08.015.
Nervous system development relies on a complex signaling network to engineer the orderly transitions that lead to the acquisition of a neural cell fate. Progression from the non-neuronal pluripotent stem cell to a restricted neural lineage is characterized by distinct patterns of gene expression, particularly the restriction of neuronal gene expression to neurons. Concurrently, cells outside the nervous system acquire and maintain a non-neuronal fate that permanently excludes expression of neuronal genes. Studies of the transcriptional repressor REST, which regulates a large network of neuronal genes, provide a paradigm for elucidating the link between epigenetic mechanisms and neurogenesis. REST orchestrates a set of epigenetic modifications that are distinct between non-neuronal cells that give rise to neurons and those that are destined to remain as nervous system outsiders.
神经系统的发育依赖于一个复杂的信号网络，以构建有序的转变过程，从而导致神经细胞命运的获得。从非神经元多能干细胞向受限神经谱系的进展，其特征在于独特的基因表达模式，特别是神经元基因表达仅限于神经元。同时，神经系统外的细胞获得并维持一种非神经元命运，永久性地排除神经元基因的表达。对转录抑制因子REST的研究为阐明表观遗传机制与神经发生之间的联系提供了一个范例，REST调控着一大组神经元基因网络。REST精心编排了一组表观遗传修饰，这些修饰在产生神经元的非神经元细胞与注定仍处于神经系统之外的细胞之间是不同的。
