Background SALL gene family represent a group of evolutionary conserved zinc finger transcription factors which are involved in normal development. It includes four members (SALL1 to SALL4). SALL4 has significant roles in the maintenance of pluripotency and self-renewal, efficient proliferation /stabilization and cell fate decision of embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Our aim in this study was to a...

background sall gene family represent a group of evolutionary conserved zinc finger transcription factors which are involved in normal development. it includes four members (sall1 to sall4). sall4 has significant roles in the maintenance of pluripotency and self-renewal, efficient proliferation /stabilization and cell fate decision of embryonic stem cells (escs). our aim in this study was to an...

Pax3/7 is expressed in the alar plate of the mesencephalon. The optic tectum differentiates from the alar plate of the mesencephalon, and expression of Pax3/7 is well correlated to the tectum development. To explore the function of Pax3 and Pax7 in the tectum development, we misexpressed Pax3 and Pax7 in the diencephalon and ventral mesencephalon. Morphological and molecular marker gene analysi...

The developing vertebrate mesencephalon shows a rostrocaudal gradient in the expression of a number of molecular markers and in the cytoarchitectonic differentiation of the tectum, where cells cease proliferating and differentiate in a rostral to caudal progression. Tissue grafting experiments have implicated cell signalling by the mesencephalic-metencephalic (mid-hindbrain) junction (or isthmu...

Ephrin-A5 has been implicated in the regulation of brain morphogenesis and axon pathfinding. In this study, we used bacterial homologous recombination to express a LacZ reporter in various ephrin-A5 BAC clones to identify elements that regulate ephrin-A5 gene expression during mesencephalon development. We found that there is mesencephalon-specific enhancer activity localized to a specific +25....

Regionalization of a simple neural tube is a fundamental event during the development of central nervous system. To analyze in vivo the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of mesencephalon, we ectopically expressed Engrailed, which is expressed in developing mesencephalon, in the brain of chick embryos by in ovo electroporation. Misexpression of Engrailed caused a rostral shift of t...

The mes/metencephalic boundary (isthmus) has an organizing activity for mesencephalon and metencephalon. The candidate signaling molecule is Fgf8 whose mRNA is localized in the region where the cerebellum differentiates. Responding to this signal, the cerebellum differentiates in the metencephalon and the tectum differentiates in the mesencephalon. Based on the assumption that strong Fgf8 signa...

The mechanism underlying the determination of neurotransmitter phenotype in the developing mesencephalon, particularly GABAergic versus glutamatergic fate, remains largely unknown. Here, we show in mice that the basic helix-loop-helix transcriptional repressor gene Helt (also known as Megane and Heslike) functions as a selector gene that determines GABAergic over glutamatergic fate in the mesen...