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Review
. 2015 Mar 20:9:76.
doi: 10.3389/fncel.2015.00076. eCollection 2015.

Astrocyte heterogeneity in the brain: from development to disease

Clarissa Schitine  1 , Luciana Nogaroli  1 , Marcos R Costa  2 , Cecilia Hedin-Pereira  3
Affiliations
Review

Astrocyte heterogeneity in the brain: from development to disease

Clarissa Schitine et al. Front Cell Neurosci. .

Abstract

In the last decades, astrocytes have risen from passive supporters of neuronal activity to central players in brain function and cognition. Likewise, the heterogeneity of astrocytes starts to become recognized in contrast to the homogeneous population previously predicted. In this review, we focused on astrocyte heterogeneity in terms of their morphological, protein expression and functional aspects, and debate in a historical perspective the diversity encountered in glial progenitors and how they may reflect mature astrocyte heterogeneity. We discussed data that show that different progenitors may have unsuspected roles in developmental processes. We have approached the functions of astrocyte subpopulations on the onset of psychiatric and neurological diseases.

Keywords: astrocyte; cerebral cortex; heterogeneity; progenitors; psychiatric diseases.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Origins of astrocytes in the cerebral cortex. (A) At later stage of embryonic brain development radial glial cell (RGC), in the ventricular zone (light gray region), gives rise to astrocytes (AS) that disperse throughout the ventral forebrain parenchyma (dark gray region). (B) After birth, RGC loses their apical processes and directly transform into cortical astrocytes. (C) Glial progenitor (GP) derived from RGC undergoes cell division in the subventricular zone (light gray region) generating astrocytes that disperse radially to the cortical layers (dark gray region) and white matter (white region). Astrocyte proliferates locally amplifying the astrocytic population. GP present in the Marginal Zone (MZ)/Layer 1 (Dotted region) contributes to superficial cortical astrocyte. (B/C) During embryonic development dorsal RGC also generates pyramidal neurons (PN) that migrate radially and settle in individual cortical columns in the gray matter. Observe that developing astrocytes maintain the columnar organization with early generated neurons. Dashed lines indicate the boundaries of individual cortical columns. Black filled figures represent mitotic cells. RGC, radial glia cell; AS, astrocyte; GP, glial progenitor; PN, pyramidal neurons.
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