About this Neuroscience article

Regulation of hippocampal neuronal differentiation by the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors HES-1 and MASH-1 by Paul Castella; John A. Wagner; Michael Caudy is a Neuroscience article available to read on EtoBox.

HES-1 is a vertebrate homologue of the Drosophila basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) protein Hairy, a transcriptional repressor that negatively regulates neuronal differentiation. HES-1 expression in neuronal precursors precedes and represses the expression of the neuronal commitment gene MASH-1, a bHLH activator homologous to the proneural Achaete-Scute genes in Drosophila. Down-regulation of HES-1 expression in developing neuroblasts may be necessary for the induction of a regulatory cascade of bHLH activator proteins that controls the commitment and progression of neuronal differentiation. Here we show that the differentiation of embryonic day-17 rat hippocampal neurons in culture was coincident with a decline in HES-1 expression and DNA binding. Therefore, we examined the effect of forced expression of HES-1 and MASH-1 upon nerve growth factor (NGF) -induced differentiation in TrkA transfected hippocampal neurons. Expression of HES-1 inhibited both the intrinsic and NGF-induced neurite outgrowth, whereas MASH-1 expression increased neurite outgrowth. Strikingly, the increased hippocampal differentiation observed with MASH-1 expression is completely blocked by coexpression of HES-1.

Author

Paul Castella; John A. Wagner; Michael Caudy

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (John Wiley & Sons); John Wiley & Sons Inc.; Wiley (ISSN 0360-4012)

Published

1999

Language

EN

Field

Neuroscience (Life Sciences)