Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Fezf2 directs the differentiation of corticofugal neurons from striatal progenitors in vivo

Nature Neuroscience volume 13, pages 1345–1347 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

In the developing cerebral cortex, cell-extrinsic and cell-intrinsic signals govern the establishment of neuron subtype-specific identity. Here we show that, within the niche of the striatum, the expression of a single transcription factor, Fezf2, is sufficient to generate corticofugal neurons from progenitors fated to become medium spiny neurons. This demonstrates that a specific population of cortical projection neurons can be directed to differentiate outside of the cortex by cell-autonomous signaling.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: LGE progenitors generate neurons with corticofugal molecular properties in response to Fezf2.
Figure 2: Fezf2GFP-electroporated neurons do not express markers of MSN.
Figure 3: Fezf2 instructs the generation of CFu neurons from LGE progenitors without expression of cortical progenitor-specific genes.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Molyneaux, B.J., Arlotta, P., Menezes, J.R. & Macklis, J.D. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 8, 427–437 (2007).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Rallu, M., Corbin, J.G. & Fishell, G. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 3, 943–951 (2002).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Schuurmans, C. & Guillemot, F. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 12, 26–34 (2002).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Schuurmans, C. et al. EMBO J. 23, 2892–2902 (2004).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Arlotta, P. et al. Neuron 45, 207–221 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Molyneaux, B.J. et al. J. Neurosci. 29, 12343–12354 (2009).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Chen, B., Schaevitz, L.R. & McConnell, S.K. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 17184–17189 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Chen, J.G., Rasin, M.R., Kwan, K.Y. & Sestan, N. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 17792–17797 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Molyneaux, B.J., Arlotta, P., Hirata, T., Hibi, M. & Macklis, J.D. Neuron 47, 817–831 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Wichterle, H., Turnbull, D.H., Nery, S., Fishell, G. & Alvarez-Buylla, A. Development 128, 3759–3771 (2001).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Mattar, P. et al. Mol. Cell. Biol. 28, 1456–1469 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Campbell, K., Olsson, M. & Bjorklund, A. Neuron 15, 1259–1273 (1995).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Fishell, G. Development 121, 803–812 (1995).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Magrassi, L. et al. Development 125, 2847–2855 (1998).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank J. Macklis (Harvard University) for reagents and advice; E. Abdel-Azim, G. Srubek-Tomassy, F. Zhang and S. Lodato for their comments; R. Hevner, (University of Washington), C. Lois (M.I.T.), K. Campbell (University of Cincinnati) and Q. Ma (Harvard Medical School) for generous sharing of antibodies, probes and expression vectors; and A. Meleski, A. Merlino and Z. Trayes-Gibson for technical support. This work was partially supported by grants to P.A. from the US National Institutes of Health (NS062849), the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center to P.A.; C.R. was partially supported by a Milton-Safenowitz postdoctoral fellowship from the ALS Association.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Regenerative Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Caroline Rouaux & Paola Arlotta

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Caroline Rouaux & Paola Arlotta

  3. Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Paola Arlotta

  4. Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Paola Arlotta

Authors
  1. Caroline Rouaux
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Paola Arlotta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

P.A. and C.R. conceived the experiments and wrote the manuscript. P.A. supervised the project and C.R. executed all the experiments.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paola Arlotta.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–5 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 4606 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rouaux, C., Arlotta, P. Fezf2 directs the differentiation of corticofugal neurons from striatal progenitors in vivo. Nat Neurosci 13, 1345–1347 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2658

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2658

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing