The role of Bcl-2 family proteins in developmental neurogenesis.

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Mammals have the most evolutionally advanced nervous system and its development is tightly regulated by cell proliferation, survival and death. The long term goal of my research program is to understand the roles of the Bcl-2 family in development of the mammalian nervous system. The canonical role of the Bcl-2 family is to regulate apoptosis, an active form of cell death. Recently however, Bcl-2 family members have been identified in roles distinct from apoptosis including mitochondrial dynamics, autophagy, calcium regulation and the cell cycle. In the short term, I propose to demonstrate that the anti-apoptotic roles of Bcl-2 proteins, Mcl-1 and Bcl-xL are linked to novel roles in cell cycle regulation during developmental neurogenesis.