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

哺乳动物具有进化上最先进的神经系统，其发育受到细胞增殖，生存和死亡的严格调控。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解Bcl-2家族在哺乳动物神经系统发育中的作用。Bcl-2家族的典型作用是调节细胞凋亡，细胞凋亡是细胞死亡的一种活跃形式。然而，最近，Bcl-2家族成员已被确定在包括线粒体动力学，自噬，钙调节和细胞周期的凋亡不同的作用。在短期内，我建议证明Bcl-2蛋白，Mcl-1和Bcl-xL的抗凋亡作用与发育神经发生过程中细胞周期调控的新作用有关。

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.