Neuroscience Research Institute, AIST, Tsukuba Central 6, 1-1-1, Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8566, Japan.
Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2013 Dec;23(6):921-7. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2013.06.002. Epub 2013 Jul 1.
In the mammalian central nervous system, astrocytes are the most abundant cell type and play crucial roles in brain development and function. Astrocytes are known to be produced from multipotent neural stem cells (NSCs) at the late gestational stage during brain development, and accumulating evidence indicates that this stage-dependent generation of astrocytes from NSCs is achieved by systematic cooperation between environmental cues and cell-intrinsic programs. Exemplifying the former is cytokine signaling through the gp130-Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 pathway, and exemplifying the latter is epigenetic modification of astrocyte-specific genes. Here, we introduce recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms that coordinate astrocytogenesis from NSCs by modulating signaling pathways and epigenetic programs, with a particular focus on the developing mammalian forebrain.
在哺乳动物中枢神经系统中，星形胶质细胞是最丰富的细胞类型，在大脑发育和功能中发挥着关键作用。已知星形胶质细胞是在大脑发育的晚期妊娠阶段由多能神经干细胞 (NSC) 产生的，越来越多的证据表明，NSC 中星形胶质细胞的这种与发育阶段相关的产生是通过环境线索和细胞内在程序的系统合作实现的。前者的例子是通过 gp130-Janus 激酶/信号转导和转录激活因子 3 途径的细胞因子信号，后者的例子是星形胶质细胞特异性基因的表观遗传修饰。在这里，我们介绍了我们对通过调节信号通路和表观遗传程序来协调 NSC 产生星形胶质细胞的机制的最新理解，特别关注发育中的哺乳动物前脑。
