Speaker
Description
In mammals, neural stem cells proliferation and differentiation contribute to organize sophisticated brain architecture during neocortical development.
Among different classes of progenitors, apical progenitors (APs) possess unique apicobasal polarity that has driven increasing interest in understanding how subcellular regulation of gene expression occurs within these cells. Similarly to other highly polarized cells such as neurons, transcripts distribution and local processing in APs apical and basal compartments might be differentially regulated in response to external stimuli.
Taking advantage of embryonic mouse brain as a model system and single cell labeling techniques, we designed a strategy to separate and enrich the apical and basal domains of APs from tissue. Downstream bulk-RNAseq provided us with a list of differentially distributed mRNAs. GO analysis revealed the enrichment, in the basal compartment of APs, of terms related to mRNA translation and processing, suggesting that the basal process might function as a dynamic compartment in which transcripts are transported and translated differentially from the apical cell body to match cellular needs.
In this scenario, the dichotomy between intracellular trafficking and transcripts localization takes on a fascinating role. Peculiar asymmetric distribution of traffic organelles within APs, suggests indeed that intracellular traffic could be the key mediator of local regulation of gene expression, influencing both transcripts localization and levels. Moreover, alterations in the distribution of traffic organelles have been associated to severe neurodevelopmental disorders, thus uncovering mRNA subcellular dynamics would contribute to the dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying such pathological conditions.
Our work is intended to deepen the knowledge in the promising field of mRNA subcellular metabolism, providing novel insights on APs regulation during neocortical development.
| Author(s) | Giulia Visani, Cristina Cheroni, Elena Restelli, Salma Amin and Elena Taverna |
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| Affiliation(s) | Human Technopole |
