Development of the nervous system articles within Nature

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  • Article |

    In the brains of embryonic mice, some types of progenitor (apical progenitors) can revert to earlier molecular, electrophysiological and neurogenic states when transplanted into younger hosts, whereas others cannot, highlighting progenitor-type-specific differences in fate plasticity.

    • Polina Oberst
    • , Sabine Fièvre
    •  & Denis Jabaudon

  • Article |

    The CRISPR–Cas9-mediated generation of germline-transmissible mutations of SHANK3 in cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) forms the basis of a non-human-primate model of autism spectrum disorder and Phelan–McDermid syndrome.

    • Yang Zhou
    • , Jitendra Sharma
    •  & Shihua Yang

  • Article |

    A screen in which combinatorial pairs of transcription factors are exogenously expressed in fibroblasts identifies different combinations that reprogram these cells into induced neuronal cells with diverse functional properties.

    • Rachel Tsunemoto
    • , Sohyon Lee
    •  & Kristin K. Baldwin

  • Article |

    The transmembrane protein teneurin-3 is expressed in multiple topographically interconnected areas of the hippocampal region and acts in both projection and target neurons to control wiring specificity from CA1 to the subiculum.

    • Dominic S. Berns
    • , Laura A. DeNardo
    •  & Liqun Luo

  • Letter |

    Preventing netrin secretion from floor-plate cells at the midline does not disrupt axonal guidance; commissural axons develop normally and the data suggest that netrin may influence axons locally by promoting growth cone adhesion.

    • Chloé Dominici
    • , Juan Antonio Moreno-Bravo
    •  & Alain Chédotal

  • Article |

    Human pluripotent stem cells were used to develop dorsal and ventral forebrain 3D spheroids, which can be assembled to study interneuron migration and to derive a functionally integrated forebrain system with cortical interneurons and glutamatergic neurons.

    • Fikri Birey
    • , Jimena Andersen
    •  & Sergiu P. Paşca

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • A. Sentürk
    • , S. Pfennig
    •  & A. Acker-Palmer

  • Article |

    A high-resolution gene expression atlas of prenatal and postnatal brain development of rhesus monkey charts global transcriptional dynamics in relation to brain maturation, while comparative analysis reveals human-specific gene trajectories; candidate risk genes associated with human neurodevelopmental disorders tend to be co-expressed in disease-specific patterns in the developing monkey neocortex.

    • Trygve E. Bakken
    • , Jeremy A. Miller
    •  & Ed S. Lein

  • Letter |

    Live imaging and single-cell analyses are used to show that decision-making by differentiating haematopoietic stem cells between the megakaryocytic–erythroid and granulocytic–monocytic lineages is not initiated by stochastic switching between the lineage-specific transcription factors PU.1 and GATA1, which challenges the previous model of early myeloid lineage choice.

    • Philipp S. Hoppe
    • , Michael Schwarzfischer
    •  & Timm Schroeder

  • Letter |

    Butterflies diversify their retinal mosaics by producing three stochastic types of ommatidia instead of the two types found in Drosophila; this study shows that butterfly retinas use two R7-like photoreceptors per ommatidium that each make an independent stochastic decision to express the transcription factor Spineless, which controls photoreceptor and ommatidial fate.

    • Michael Perry
    • , Michiyo Kinoshita
    •  & Claude Desplan

  • Article |

    How sex-specific neuronal circuits are generated during development is poorly understood; here, sensory neurons are identified in the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which initially connect in both male- and hermaphrodite-specific patterns, but a specific subset of these connections is pruned by each sex upon sexual maturation to produce sex-specific connectivity patterns and dimorphic behaviours.

    • Meital Oren-Suissa
    • , Emily A. Bayer
    •  & Oliver Hobert

  • Letter |

    Re-expression of the Shank3 gene in adult mice results in improvements in synaptic protein composition and spine density in the striatum; Shank3 also rescues autism-like features such as social interaction and grooming behaviour, and the results suggest that aspects of autism spectrum disorders may be reversible in adulthood.

    • Yuan Mei
    • , Patricia Monteiro
    •  & Guoping Feng

  • Article |

    WebSchizophrenia is associated with genetic variation at the major histocompatibility complex locus; this study reveals that alleles at this locus associate with schizophrenia in proportion to their tendency to generate greater expression of complement component 4 (C4A) genes and that C4 promotes the elimination of synpases.

    • Aswin Sekar
    • , Allison R. Bialas
    •  & Steven A. McCarroll

  • Article |

    In the worm C. elegans, a previously unidentified pair of bilateral neurons in the male (termed MCMs) are shown to arise from differentiated glial cells upon sexual maturation; these neurons are essential for a male-specific form of associative learning which balances chemotactic responses with reproductive priorities.

    • Michele Sammut
    • , Steven J. Cook
    •  & Arantza Barrios

  • Letter |

    The mouse retinal ganglion cell type known as the W3B-RGC, which detects motion of objects against a moving background, is shown to receive strong specific and excitatory input from amacrine cells expressing vesicular glutamine transporter 3; this selective connection is mediated by homophilic interactions of the recognition molecule sidekick 2 (Sdk2), which is expressed on both cells, and disruption of this connection affects object motion detection in W3B-RGCs.

    • Arjun Krishnaswamy
    • , Masahito Yamagata
    •  & Joshua R. Sanes

  • Letter |

    Neuronal synapses need to be formed at the right time and the right place during nervous system development; here, three gene-regulatory factors (the UNC-30, LIN-14 and UNC-55 DNA-binding proteins) are shown to operate in an intersectional manner to control the expression of a novel synaptic organizer molecule, OIG-1.

    • Kelly Howell
    • , John G. White
    •  & Oliver Hobert

  • Letter |

    The molecular relationship between synaptic dysfunction and psychiatric disorders was investigated using a mouse model system; presynaptically localized Cntnap4 is required for the output of two disease-relevant neuronal subpopulations (cortical parvalbumin-positive GABAergic cells and midbrain dopaminergic neurons) and Cntnap4 mutants show behavioural abnormalities which can be pharmacologically reversed.

    • T. Karayannis
    • , E. Au
    •  & G. Fishell

  • Article |

    Populations of astrocytes in the spinal cord are shown to express region-specific genes, with ventral astrocyte-encoded Sema3a necessary for proper motor neuron circuit organization and typical sensory afferent projection patterns; these findings suggest that astrocytes provide a positional cue for maintaining proper circuit formation and refinement.

    • Anna V. Molofsky
    • , Kevin W. Kelley
    •  & David H. Rowitch

  • Article |

    A spatially resolved transcriptional atlas of the mid-gestational developing human brain has been created using laser-capture microdissection and microarray technology, providing a comprehensive reference resource which also enables new hypotheses about the nature of human brain evolution and the origins of neurodevelopmental disorders.

    • Jeremy A. Miller
    • , Song-Lin Ding
    •  & Ed S. Lein

  • Article |

    This study reveals a role for the MHC class I molecule H2-Db in retinogeniculate synapse elimination; expression of this immune system molecule in neurons lacking it is sufficient to rescue proper synapse pruning, as well as the segregation of eye-specific circuits in mice.

    • Hanmi Lee
    • , Barbara K. Brott
    •  & Carla J. Shatz

  • Letter |

    In mice, chronic stimulation by repetitive sounds, whisker deflection, motor activity or seizures during a postnatal developmental critical period, leads to permanent reductions in brain microvascular density, an effect that impairs oxygen delivery to neurons but can be prevented by blocking nitric oxide signalling.

    • Christina Whiteus
    • , Catarina Freitas
    •  & Jaime Grutzendler

  • Article |

    Five transcription factors are sequentially expressed in a temporal cascade in Drosophila medulla neuroblasts of the visual system; cross-regulations between these transcription factors control the temporal transitions, and temporal switching of neural progenitors may be a common theme in neuronal specification, with different sequences of transcription factors being used in different contexts.

    • Xin Li
    • , Ted Erclik
    •  & Claude Desplan

  • Letter |

    A study of mouse visual cortex relating patterns of excitatory synaptic connectivity to visual response properties of neighbouring neurons shows that, after eye opening, local connectivity reorganizes extensively: more connections form selectively between neurons with similar visual responses and connections are eliminated between visually unresponsive neurons, but the overall connectivity rate does not change.

    • Ho Ko
    • , Lee Cossell
    •  & Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel

  • Article |

    Recordings from rat grid cells, cells that are active at periodically spaced locations in the environment, show that they are organized into discrete modules that maintain distinct scale and orientation, and may respond independently to environmental changes.

    • Hanne Stensola
    • , Tor Stensola
    •  & Edvard I. Moser

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of different classes of neuronal progenitor cell, destined to give rise to neurons in specific layers of the cerebral cortex, could presage the revision of a 50-year-old model of brain development.

    • Oscar Marín

  • Letter |

    The cell death of inhibitory neurons, which originate far from the cortical areas to which they migrate during embryonic development, is determined autonomously rather than by competition for trophic signals from other cell types.

    • Derek G. Southwell
    • , Mercedes F. Paredes
    •  & Arturo Alvarez-Buylla

  • Article |

    The roles of BATF transcription factors in dendritic cell differentiation are studied, providing evidence for molecular compensation by related family members; compensation is based on the interaction of the BATF leucine zipper domains with IRF factors to mediate cooperative gene activation.

    • Roxane Tussiwand
    • , Wan-Ling Lee
    •  & Kenneth M. Murphy

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