Human forebrain expansion is regulated by a human accelerated region controlling early Foxg1 expression
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE116071 | GEO | 2025/03/20
REPOSITORIES: GEO
Similar Datasets
Project description:Human forebrain expansion is regulated by a human accelerated region controlling early Foxg1 expression
| PRJNA476949 | ENA
Project description:Heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in Forkhead box G1 (FOXG1), a uniquely brain-expressed gene, cause microcephaly, seizures, and severe intellectual disability, whereas increased FOXG1 expression is frequently observed in glioblastoma. To investigate the role of FOXG1 in forebrain cell proliferation, we modeled FOXG1 syndrome using cells from three clinically diagnosed cases with two sex-matched healthy parents and one unrelated sex-matched control. Cells with heterozygous FOXG1 loss showed significant reduction in cell proliferation, increased ratio of cells in G0/G1 stage of the cell cycle, and increased frequency of primary cilia. Engineered loss of FOXG1 recapitulated this effect, while isogenic repair of a patient mutation reverted output markers to wild type. An engineered inducible FOXG1 cell line derived from a FOXG1 syndrome case demonstrated that FOXG1 dose-dependently affects all cell proliferation outputs measured. These findings provide strong support for the critical importance of FOXG1 levels in controlling human brain cell growth in health and disease.
| S-EPMC9040178 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Primary microcephaly (MCPH) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by global reduction in cerebral cortical volume. The microcephalic brain has a volume comparable to that of early hominids, raising the possibility that some MCPH genes may have been evolutionary targets in the expansion of the cerebral cortex in mammals and especially primates. Mutations in ASPM, which encodes the human homologue of a fly protein essential for spindle function, are the most common known cause of MCPH. Here we have isolated large genomic clones containing the complete ASPM gene, including promoter regions and introns, from chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and rhesus macaque by transformation-associated recombination cloning in yeast. We have sequenced these clones and show that whereas much of the sequence of ASPM is substantially conserved among primates, specific segments are subject to high Ka/Ks ratios (nonsynonymous/synonymous DNA changes) consistent with strong positive selection for evolutionary change. The ASPM gene sequence shows accelerated evolution in the African hominoid clade, and this precedes hominid brain expansion by several million years. Gorilla and human lineages show particularly accelerated evolution in the IQ domain of ASPM. Moreover, ASPM regions under positive selection in primates are also the most highly diverged regions between primates and nonprimate mammals. We report the first direct application of TAR cloning technology to the study of human evolution. Our data suggest that evolutionary selection of specific segments of the ASPM sequence strongly relates to differences in cerebral cortical size.
| S-EPMC374243 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The contribution of dopamine (DA) to locomotor control is traditionally attributed to ascending dopaminergic projections from the substantia nigra pars compacta and the ventral tegmental area to the basal ganglia, which in turn project down to the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR), a brainstem region controlling locomotion in vertebrates. However, a dopaminergic innervation of the pedunculopontine nucleus, considered part of the MLR, was recently identified in the monkey. The origin and role of this dopaminergic input are unknown. We addressed these questions in a basal vertebrate, the lamprey. Here we report a functional descending dopaminergic pathway from the posterior tuberculum (PT; homologous to the substantia nigra pars compacta and/or ventral tegmental area of mammals) to the MLR. By using triple labeling, we found that dopaminergic cells from the PT not only project an ascending pathway to the striatum, but send a descending projection to the MLR. In an isolated brain preparation, PT stimulation elicited excitatory synaptic inputs into patch-clamped MLR cells, accompanied by activity in reticulospinal cells. By using voltammetry coupled with electrophysiological recordings, we demonstrate that PT stimulation evoked DA release in the MLR, together with the activation of reticulospinal cells. In a semi-intact preparation, stimulation of the PT elicited reticulospinal activity together with locomotor movements. Microinjections of a D1 antagonist in the MLR decreased the locomotor output elicited by PT stimulation, whereas injection of DA had an opposite effect. It appears that this descending dopaminergic pathway has a modulatory role on MLR cells that are known to receive glutamatergic projections and promotes locomotor output.
| S-EPMC3752272 | biostudies-literature
Project description:It has been proposed that the phenotypic differences in cognitive abilities between humans and our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, are largely due to changes in the regulation of neurodevelopmental genes. We have previously found that the neurodevelopmental transcription factor gene NPAS3 accumulates the largest number of human accelerated regions (HARs), suggesting it may play some role in the phenotypic evolution of the human nervous system. In this work, we performed a comparative functional analysis of NPAS3-HAR202 using enhancer reporter assays in transgenic zebrafish and mice. We found that the Homo sapiens HAR202 ortholog failed to drive reporter expression to the zebrafish nervous system, in high contrast to the strong expression displayed by the rest of the vertebrate ortholog sequences tested. Remarkably, the HAR202 ortholog from archaic humans (Neanderthals/Denisovans) also displayed a pan-vertebrate expression pattern, despite the fact that archaic and modern humans have only one nucleotide substitution. Moreover, similar results were found when comparing enhancer activity in transgenic mice, where we observed a loss of activity of the modern human version in the mouse developing brain. To investigate the functional importance of HAR202, we generated mice lacking HAR202 and found a remarkable decrease of Npas3 expression in the forebrain during development. Our results place HAR202 as one of the very few examples of a neurodevelopmental transcriptional enhancer displaying functional evolution in the brain as a result of a fast molecular evolutionary process that specifically occurred in the human lineage.
| S-EPMC11461159 | biostudies-literature
Project description:STAT3 has been studied extensively in the context of self-renewal of naïve pluripotent mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). Although STAT3 is required to maintain ICM lineages when maternally eliminated, the role of STAT3 during gastrulation is unclear as the conventional knockout of Stat3 develops until E6.5. In this study, we observed that zygotic loss of Stat3 on CD1 genetic background leads to consistent developmental retardation from implantation to mid-gestation, beginning with a significant reduction in the number of epiblast cells by the time of implantation. Remarkably, mutants appear to scale normally and resemble non-affected embryos from the previous day at all postimplantation stages examined. Bulk RNA-seq analysis using isolated epiblast cells revealeed that E6.5 null epiblasts were intermediate between WT E5.5 and E6.5; E7.5 null epiblasts grouped more closely with WT E6.5 than E7.5 epiblasts. Gene ontology analysis revealed lipid metabolism was compromised in Stat3 null embryos as early as E6.5. Interestingly, Socs3, downstream target of STAT3, was not induced in WT rpiblast cells until E7.5. We found Y705 phospholylated STAT3 was not exist postimplantation epiblast, but S727 phoshorylated STAT3 was abundant over the time, suggesting postimplantation specific roles of S727 phosphorylated STAT3 in growth and differentiation. Our study revealed that while Stat3 null epiblast cells progress along a near normal differentiation trajectory, Stat3 deletion compromises lipid metabolism as early as E6.5.
2025-04-07 | GSE254697 | GEO
Project description:STAT3 has been studied extensively in the context of self-renewal of naïve pluripotent mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). Although STAT3 is required to maintain ICM lineages when maternally eliminated, the role of STAT3 during gastrulation is unclear as the conventional knockout of Stat3 develops until E6.5. In this study, we observed that zygotic loss of Stat3 on CD1 genetic background leads to consistent developmental retardation from implantation to mid-gestation, beginning with a significant reduction in the number of epiblast cells by the time of implantation. Remarkably, mutants appear to scale normally and resemble non-affected embryos from the previous day at all postimplantation stages examined. Bulk RNA-seq analysis using isolated epiblast cells revealeed that E6.5 null epiblasts were intermediate between WT E5.5 and E6.5; E7.5 null epiblasts grouped more closely with WT E6.5 than E7.5 epiblasts. Gene ontology analysis revealed lipid metabolism was compromised in Stat3 null embryos as early as E6.5. Interestingly, Socs3, downstream target of STAT3, was not induced in WT rpiblast cells until E7.5. We found Y705 phospholylated STAT3 was not exist postimplantation epiblast, but S727 phoshorylated STAT3 was abundant over the time, suggesting postimplantation specific roles of S727 phosphorylated STAT3 in growth and differentiation. Our study revealed that while Stat3 null epiblast cells progress along a near normal differentiation trajectory, Stat3 deletion compromises lipid metabolism as early as E6.5.
2025-04-07 | GSE259342 | GEO
Project description:Quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomic analyses in combination with genetics provide powerful tools in developmental cell signaling research. Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most widely used genetic models for studying development and disease. Here we combined quantitative proteomics with genetic selection to determine global changes in the proteome upon depletion of the Heartless (Htl) Fibroblast-Growth Factor (FGF) receptor signaling in Drosophila embryos at the gastrula stage. We present a robust, single generation SILAC (stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture) protocol for labeling proteins in early embryos and for the selection of homozygously mutant embryos at pre-gastrula stages using an independent genetic marker. Our analyses detected quantitative changes in the global proteome of htl mutant embryos during gastrulation. We identified distinct classes of down-regulated and up-regulated proteins and network analyses indicates functionally related groups of proteins in each class. In addition, we identified changes in the abundance of phosphopeptides. These data suggest that FGF signaling in the early embryo affects global changes in the abundance of metabolic, nucleoplasmic, cytoskeletal and transport proteins.
2021-09-09 | PXD016438 | Pride
Project description:We applied Illumina sequencing to identify microRNAs (miRNAs) and piwi-interacting small RNAs (piRNAs) in the pre- and post-gastrula chicken embryos, and simultaneously obtain a comprehensive expression profile of miRNAs at diverse developmental stages. Discovery and characterization of small RNA species from pre-gastrula and post-gastrula chicken embryos through deep sequencing
2011-12-15 | E-GEOD-28668 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The human brain has undergone rapid expansion since humans diverged from other great apes, but the mechanism of this human-specific enlargement is still unknown. Here, we use cerebral organoids derived from human, gorilla, and chimpanzee cells to study developmental mechanisms driving evolutionary brain expansion. We find that neuroepithelial differentiation is a protracted process in apes, involving a previously unrecognized transition state characterized by a change in cell shape. Furthermore, we show that human organoids are larger due to a delay in this transition, associated with differences in interkinetic nuclear migration and cell cycle length. Comparative RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) reveals differences in expression dynamics of cell morphogenesis factors, including ZEB2, a known epithelial-mesenchymal transition regulator. We show that ZEB2 promotes neuroepithelial transition, and its manipulation and downstream signaling leads to acquisition of nonhuman ape architecture in the human context and vice versa, establishing an important role for neuroepithelial cell shape in human brain expansion.
| S-EPMC8054913 | biostudies-literature