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Genes and Cell Type Specification in Cerebellar Development

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Handbook of the Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders

Abstract

One of the key goals of neural development is to make specific cell types that originate from multipotent progenitor cells. The process of cell specification is only beginning to be understood. Evidence thus far suggests that it occurs in a stepwise fashion, and it is likely that each step requires the coordinated expression of a unique set of genes. The cerebellum is an excellent model system for understanding cell fate questions because it contains only a handful of defined cell types that are each located in a specific lamina and are therefore easily identified. These features have made the cerebellum an essential brain region in the understanding of the gene networks that give rise to specific cell types during development. This chapter will first discuss recent advances in parsing the pathways necessary to produce specific cerebellar cell types. Next, the open-source cerebellar GRiTS (Gene Regulation in Time and Space) project (CBGRiTS.org), which has amassed a microarray-based readout of cerebellar gene expression on a daily basis during embryogenesis and every 3 days postnatally, will be discussed. Finally, efforts to mine this transcriptomic information using novel bioinformatic tools to search for new genes that may confer cell-type specificity during cerebellar development will also be discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Genetics, Child and Family Research Institute, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, University of British Columbia, 950 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 4H4, Canada

    Matt Larouche & Dr. Daniel Goldowitz Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Matt Larouche
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  2. Dr. Daniel Goldowitz Ph.D.
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Unité d'Etude du Mouvement (UEM), FNRS, Neurologie ULB Erasme, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Mario Manto

  2. Ataxia Unit, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Jeremy D. Schmahmann

  3. Neuroscience Institute of the Cavalieri-Ottolenghi Foundation (NICO), University of Turin, Orbassano, Turin, Italy

    Ferdinando Rossi

  4. Molecular and Integrative Neuroscience Department (MIND), The Scripps Research Institute, California, CA, USA

    Donna L. Gruol

  5. Department of Integrative Physiolgy, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan

    Noriyuki Koibuchi

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Larouche, M., Goldowitz, D. (2013). Genes and Cell Type Specification in Cerebellar Development. In: Manto, M., Schmahmann, J.D., Rossi, F., Gruol, D.L., Koibuchi, N. (eds) Handbook of the Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1333-8_15

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