Cell fate and cell lineage

Dong Won Kim and colleagues investigate the mechanisms by which hypothalamic GABAergic neurons differentiate during development. They report that Lhx6 is crucial for the survival of hypothalamic neurons.

Analysis of cis-regulatory chromatin interactions, open chromatin and transcriptomes for different cell types isolated from mid-gestational human cortex samples provides insights into gene regulation during development.

The cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating hypothalamic patterning and differentiation are unclear. Here, the authors profiled the transcriptome of the developing hypothalamus at single cell level, providing a resource to hypothalamic development in health and disease.

The diversity of primary sensory neurons and how fate choice is determined is unclear. Here, the authors use single cell RNA sequencing analysis of early murine somatosensory neurons to show that sensory neuron diversity is achieved by a transition through a bi-potential intermediate state.

Columns are the functional and morphological unit of the brain, but how neurons assemble into this structure was unclear. Here, the authors show that Dscam gene rewires neurons that derive from the same stem cell to establish columns through the process of lineage-dependent repulsion.

Garcia-Marques et al. present CLADES, an innovative approach to study neuronal lineages based on CRISPR. Inspired by synthetic biology, CLADES relies on a system of genetic switches to activate and inactivate reporter genes in a predetermined order.