Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Nov 23;20(22):2058-65.
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.029. Epub 2010 Nov 11.

TAp73 acts via the bHLH Hey2 to promote long-term maintenance of neural precursors

Masashi Fujitani  1 , Gonzalo I Cancino, Chandrasagar B Dugani, Ian C G Weaver, Andrée Gauthier-Fisher, Annie Paquin, Tak W Mak, Martin J Wojtowicz, Freda D Miller, David R Kaplan
Affiliations
Free article

TAp73 acts via the bHLH Hey2 to promote long-term maintenance of neural precursors

Masashi Fujitani et al. Curr Biol. .
Free article

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that deficits in adult stem cell maintenance cause aberrant tissue repair and premature aging [1]. While the mechanisms regulating stem cell longevity are largely unknown, recent studies have implicated p53 and its family member p63. Both proteins regulate organismal aging [2-4] as well as survival and self-renewal of tissue stem cells [5-9]. Intriguingly, haploinsufficiency for a third family member, p73, causes age-related neurodegeneration [10]. While this phenotype is at least partially due to loss of the ΔNp73 isoform, a potent neuronal prosurvival protein [11-16], a recent study showed that mice lacking the other p73 isoform, TAp73, have perturbations in the hippocampal dentate gyrus [17], a major neurogenic site in the adult brain. These findings, and the link between the p53 family, stem cells, and aging, suggest that TAp73 might play a previously unanticipated role in maintenance of neural stem cells. Here, we have tested this hypothesis and show that TAp73 ensures normal adult neurogenesis by promoting the long-term maintenance of neural stem cells. Moreover, we show that TAp73 does this by transcriptionally regulating the bHLH Hey2, which itself promotes neural precursor maintenance by preventing premature differentiation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

Associated data

LinkOut - more resources