Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Dev Cell. 2012 Sep 11;23(3):624-36. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.07.012.
Previous studies have raised the possibility that Wnt signaling may regulate both neural progenitor maintenance and neuronal differentiation within a single population. Here we investigate the role of Wnt/β-catenin activity in the zebrafish hypothalamus and find that the pathway is first required for the proliferation of unspecified hypothalamic progenitors in the embryo. At later stages, including adulthood, sequential activation and inhibition of Wnt activity is required for the differentiation of neural progenitors and negatively regulates radial glia differentiation. The presence of Wnt activity is conserved in hypothalamic progenitors of the adult mouse, where it plays a conserved role in inhibiting the differentiation of radial glia. This study establishes the vertebrate hypothalamus as a model for Wnt-regulated postembryonic neural progenitor differentiation and defines specific roles for Wnt signaling in neurogenesis.
先前的研究提出了这样一种可能性，即 Wnt 信号可能在单个细胞群体中同时调节神经祖细胞的维持和神经元的分化。在这里，我们研究了 Wnt/β-连环蛋白信号通路在斑马鱼下丘脑发育中的作用，发现该通路首先需要在胚胎中未指定的下丘脑祖细胞的增殖。在后期，包括成年期，Wnt 活性的顺序激活和抑制对于神经祖细胞的分化是必需的，并且负调节放射状胶质细胞的分化。Wnt 活性的存在在成年小鼠下丘脑祖细胞中是保守的，在那里它在抑制放射状胶质细胞的分化中发挥保守作用。本研究将脊椎动物下丘脑确立为 Wnt 调控的胚胎后神经祖细胞分化的模型，并确定了 Wnt 信号在神经发生中的特定作用。
