login
Become a member
Quick Registration
Full Registration Benefits -
Free Homepages for Doctors
Free Homepages for Hospitals
Free Homepages for Medical Conference
Free Homepages for NGO's
Personal Health Record Creation
Access to all Medical Slides
Access to all Jobs & Products Sale
Study Shows Brain Growth Tied to Cell Division in Mouse Embryos
Vangl2 (aka Strabismus in flies) is a component of the PCP (planar cell polarity) pathway that is active in a variety of tissues and organisms. Mice that lack Vangl2 have a number of neurological defects including incomplete neural tube closure and reduced brain size.
Sokol and Lake wondered how Vangl2 might influence brain development. In the cerebral cortex, neurons are born from a pool of progenitor cells, and the time of their birth determines their fate. The research duo found that Vangl2-lacking mouse embryos had large numbers of early-born neurons and few remaining progenitor cells. This hinted that Vangl2-lacking neurons were differentiating prematurely—a suspicion confirmed in vitro.
The progenitor pool is maintained by asymmetrical division—one daughter cell becomes a neuron, the other self-renews. This fate asymmetry is thought to depend on the orientation of cell division, and the authors observed an increase in the number of symmetrically dividing progenitors in the brains of Vangl2-lacking mouse embryos. Also, Vangl2-lacking cells in culture showed symmetrical distribution of a spindle-orienting factor that in normal cells distributes asymmetrically.
Such similarities between Vangl2-lacking cells in vitro and in vivo will facilitate ongoing studies of the PCP pathway in neurogenesis.
Source-Eurekalert
SRM
|
|
 Comment & Contribute
|
Medwonders Health Network
- Health News Index
 | Quiz on Brain Feeling bad, sad, silly or glad? Find out what is responsible by taking part in our brain quiz. 
|
- News Quick Links
 |
Brain
Complete Medindia Resources
|
| News Categories: |
| » | Research: Bright Colored Chips can Cut Consumption by Half |
| » | Olympic Athlete's Body Via the 80-10-10 Raw Vegan Diet |
| » | Importance of Canned Foods To Help Tackle IOM Weight Of The Nation Recommendations, Highlights Study |
| » | US Rules Pomegranate Juice Claims Deceptive |
| » | Reducing Entrée Size Could Increase Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Children |
| More Diet News | |
|
