Development
Author: Ana Paula De Vincenti | email: anadevin8@gmail.com
Ana Paula De Vincenti 1°, Antonela Bonafina 1°, Fernanda Ledda 2°, Gustavo Paratcha 1°
1° Laboratorio de neurociencia molecular y celular, Instituto de biología celular y neurociencias “Prof. E De Robertis” (IBCN), Universidad de Buenos Aires-CONICET
2° Fundación Instituto Leloir, Instituto de investigaciones bioquímicas de Buenos Aires, CONICET
The mammalian cerebral cortex is a highly organized structure responsible for cognitive, sensory and motor functions. It’s development requires coordination of crucial processes such as cell proliferation, migration, differentiation and acquisition of layer specific identities. Many extracellular cues and intrinsic factors have been identified as regulators of this process. However, further investigation is needed to understand how this complex architecture is achieved. In this work, we show that Leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobulin-like domains proteins (Lrig) are expressed in the embryonic neocortex during the period of neurogenesis. We identified a member of Lrig family as a regulator of cortical cell proliferation and self-renewal, disrupting mitogenic activity of trophic factors. We show that genetic ablation of Lrig modifies the population of proliferating cortical precursors in vivo, which in turn gives rise to an abnormal number of excitatory neurons in mice postnatal cortex. These results indicate that Lrig plays a key physiological role functioning as a homeostatic regulator of glutamatergic cortical neurogenesis.