Developmental gene expression patterns driving species-specific cortical features - PubMed
3 hours ago
- #species-specific
- #gene expression
- #cortical development
- The study used machine vision to compare cell-type-specific gene expression patterns in developing mouse and human neocortex and human cortical organoids.
- It identified species-specific cyto-temporal gene expression patterns, including the transcription factor gene JUNB showing mutually exclusive expression in human progenitors and mouse neurons.
- Experiments showed that JUNB bidirectionally controls human cortical features like progenitor proliferation rates, neuronal production timing, and total neuronal output.
- IRF1 was identified as a human radial glia-specific regulator that activates JUNB and recruits human-like gene regulatory networks in mice, demonstrating cross-species activation of poised developmental programs.