FAW: Molecular Mechanisms of Glial-Guided Neuronal Migration

获得了英国皇家科学院女科学家和女工程师学院奖。 美国国家科学基金会，玛丽哈滕博士将继续 研究神经元-胶质细胞相互作用的发育机制 在中枢神经系统中。 这项研究的主要目的是 是为了阐明遗传和分子遗传调控， 哺乳动物大脑发育中的神经元迁移 采用分子生物学方法和突变小鼠模型。 小鼠小脑细胞的体外模型系统已经被 在哈滕博士的实验室开发的， 迁移的分子机制。 表型突变小鼠 在胶质细胞引导的迁移中，由韦弗基因表达的缺陷 将用于分析迁移的遗传调控。 一种新的粘附配体，astrotactin，已被确定为 介导神经元-胶质细胞结合并将用于描述 迁移的分子组成。 功能研究表明 胶质细胞引导的神经元迁移利用astrotactin， 神经细胞粘附分子。 这种表达方式 配体将在其他大脑区域进行检查，例如 海马、皮质和皮质下区域和astrotactin cDNA 将用于从cDNA中克隆astrotactin及相关基因 其他大脑区域的图书馆。 这项工作将提供 关于astrotactin的序列，其结构， 与已知蛋白质的功能和同源性。

With a Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Mary Hatten will continue to study the developmental mechanisms of neuronal-glial interactions in the central nervous system. The primary goal of this research is to elucidate the genetic and molecular genetic regulation of neuronal migrations in the developing mammalian brain by employing molecular biological methods and mutant mouse models. An in vitro model system for mouse cerebellar cells has been developed in Dr. Hatten's laboratory to define the cellular and molecular mechanisms of migration. Mutant mice with phenotypic defects, expressed by the weaver gene, in glial-guided migration will be utilized to analyze the genetic regulation of migration. A novel adhesion ligand, astrotactin, has been identified to mediate neuron-glia binding and will be used to describe the molecular components of migration. Functional studies indicate that glial-guided neuronal migration utilizes astrotactin rather than neural cell adhesion molecules. The expression of this ligand will be examined in other brain regions, such as the hippocampus, cortex and subcortical regions and astrotactin cDNAs will be used to clone astrotactin and related genes from cDNA libraries of other brain regions. This work will provide information on the sequence of astrotactin, its structure, function and homology with known proteins.