Site-specific epigenetic regulation in cell fate decision of neural progenitor cells

在哺乳动物神经发育过程中，神经干/祖细胞会改变其分化潜能；它们在神经发育早期产生神经元，并在发育后期获得产生神经胶质细胞的潜能。尽管包括DNA甲基化在内的表观遗传调控被认为参与了这一步骤，但神经干细胞分化的表观遗传调控的具体机制仍不清楚。在这里，我证明了Dnmt1深入参与了这一机制，并且Dnmt1进一步受到维甲酸信号的调节。

During mammalian neural development, neural stem/progenitor cells sequentially change their differentiation potency ; they produce neurons during early neural development, and acquire potency to generate glial cells in later developmental stage.Although epigenetic regulation including DNA methylation is considered to be involved in this step, detailed mechanism to regulate site specific epigenetic regulation of neural stem cell differentiation is still elusive. Here I demonstrated that Dnmt1 is deeply involved in this mechanism and Dnmt1 is further regulated by retinoic acid signaling.