During neocortical development, excitatory neurons are produced from apical progenitors in the ventricular zone (VZ) or from dividing cells in the subventricular zone (SVZ). We previously reported that the direct progenies of VZ cells in mice slowly exit the VZ and accumulate just above the VZ (lower SVZ) as multipolar migrating neurons, whereas subsequently dividing cells in the SVZ exit the V...

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) induces abundant autophagy. Of the nine human herpesviruses, the VZV genome is the smallest (~124 kbp), lacking any known inhibitors of autophagy, such as the herpes simplex virus ICP34.5 neurovirulence gene. Therefore, this review assesses the evidence for VZV-induced cellular stress, endoplasmic-reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD), and autophagic flux during t...

Progenitor cells in the ventricular zone (VZ) and subventricular zone (SVZ) of the developing forebrain give rise to neurons and glial cells, and are characterized by distinct morphologies and proliferative behaviors. The mechanisms that distinguish VZ and SVZ progenitors are not well understood, although the homeodomain transcription factor Cux2 and Cyclin D2, a core component of the cell cycl...

Infections occurring 6 mo or later after bone marrow transplantation for severe aplastic anemia or hematologic malignancy were analyzed in 98 long-term survivors. Varicella-zoster (VZ) infections were analyzed separately from all other infections. The factor predisposing most strongly to late VZ infection was genotypic nonidentity for HLA between marrow donor and recipient. There was a suggesti...

The neuroepithelium (NE) or ventricular zone (VZ), from which multiple types of brain cells arise, is pseudostratified. In the NE/VZ, neural progenitor cells are elongated along the apicobasal axis, and their nuclei assume different apicobasal positions. These nuclei move in a cell cycle-dependent manner, i.e., apicalward during G2 phase and basalward during G1 phase, a process called interkine...

OBJECTIVE The objectives of the study were to evaluate retrograde axonal transport of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) protein to sensory neurons after intramuscular administration of an engineered zinc finger protein activator of endogenous VEGF-A (VZ+434) in an experimental model of diabetes, and to characterize the VEGF-A target neurons. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We compared...

The quantity and duration of production of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is tightly controlled due to its potential to cause serious harm. For example, TNF release in response to overwhelming bacterial infection has been implicated as the first step in potentially lethal septic shock. Prostaglandins and leukotrienes are thought to play opposing roles in regulating TNF production by monocytes and ...

The mechanisms controlling the transition from neurogenesis to gliogenesis in the vertebrate CNS are incompletely understood. We identified a family of transcription factors, called NFI genes, which are induced throughout the spinal cord ventricular zone (VZ) concomitantly with the induction of GLAST, an early marker of gliogenesis. NFIA is both necessary and sufficient for GLAST induction in t...

There is growing evidence that even before synapses form, spontaneous calcium transients can influence many aspects of neurodevelopment (Spitzer 2002). These early spontaneous calcium transients can be patterned both temporally as periodic oscillations and spatially as propagating waves or as synchronized events across neighboring cells. Two major questions in developmental neuroscience: how ar...