Activating transcription factors Atf3/4 drive early molecular events during neural stem cell differentiation and control neuron formation [RNA-seq]
The generation of new neurons from neural stem cells is tightly controlled by transcriptional programs. To induce cell fate switches that establish neuronal identities, differentiating neural precursor cells (NPCs) must undergo rapid and dynamic gene expression changes. However, the neuronal fate-determining molecular events that precede NPC differentiation are incompletely understood. Using high temporal resolution transcriptional profiling of adult hippocampal NPC differentiation, we here identified the activating transcription factors Atf3 and Atf4 as early switch regulators that drive NPC fate and control neuron formation. We found that Atf3/4 are rapidly upregulated in NPCs upon induction of differentiation and drive dynamic gene expression changes associated with neurogenesis. Pharmacological and genetic perturbation of Atf4 demonstrated its importance for neuron formation. Sustained overexpression of Atf3 hampered neurogenesis by repressing long non-coding RNA Miat. Our results demonstrate the critical role of an Atf3/Atf4-controlled transcriptional network in driving early molecular events during neurogenesis. Overall design: The transcription factors Atf3 and Atf4 were overexpressed during differentiation of neural precursor cells (NPCs) derived from the hippocampus of adult mice. Atf3/4-induced transcriptional changes in differentiating NPCs were detected using RNA sequencing.