Mammalian BarH homologue is a potential regulator of neural bHLH genes.
Vertebrate neurogenesis involves sequential actions of transcription factors. neurogenins, encoding Atonal-related bHLH transcription factors, function as neuronal determination genes in Xenopus. neurogenins and antother bHLH factor gene, Mash1, are expressed in distinct subsets or areas of cells giving rise to neurons, suggesting that these genes play important roles to generate distinct populations of neurons. A mammalian homologue of BarH (MBH1) is expressed in a complementary pattern to Mash1 expression in the developing nervous system like neurogenins. Forced expression of MBH1 down-regulates expression of Mash1 and up-regulates neurogenin2/Math4A, a member of neurogenins, in P19 cells during neuronal differentiation. This suggests that MBH1 is a potential regulator of mammalian neural bHLH genes, thereby establishing distinct pathways of neuronal differentiation.
Tsukuba Life Science Center, RIKEN, Ibaraki, Japan. tesaito@lab.nig.ac.jp
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D002460:Cell Line; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D004330:Drosophila / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development / Q000235:genetics; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D005801:Genes, Homeobox; D017344:Genes, Insect; D018257:Helix-Loop-Helix Motifs / Q000235:genetics*; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics
D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005136:Eye Proteins; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C499318:Ascl1 protein, rat; C072318:B-H1 protein, Drosophila; C072319:B-H2 protein, Drosophila; C491183:NEUROG2 protein, human