MicroRNA profiling of mouse cortical progenitors and neurons reveals miR-486-5p as a regulator of neurogenesis

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short (∼22 nt) single-stranded non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Over recent years, many studies have extensively characterized the involvement of miRNA-mediated regulation in neurogenesis and brain development. However, a comprehensive catalog of cortical miRNAs expressed in a cell-specific manner in progenitor types of the developing mammalian cortex is still missing. Overcoming this limitation, here we exploited a double reporter mouse line previously validated by our group to allow the identification of the transcriptional signature of neurogenic commitment and provide the field with the complete atlas of miRNA expression in proliferating neural stem cells, neurogenic progenitors and newborn neurons during corticogenesis. By extending the currently known list of miRNAs expressed in the mouse brain by over twofold, our study highlights the power of cell type-specific analyses for the detection of transcripts that would otherwise be diluted out when studying bulk tissues. We further exploited our data by predicting putative miRNAs and validated the power of our approach by providing evidence for the involvement of miR-486 in brain development.

Details

Original languageEnglish
JournalDevelopment (Cambridge)
Volume147
Issue number9
Publication statusPublished - 11 May 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85084695096
ORCID /0000-0002-2668-8371/work/71824185
ORCID /0000-0002-3274-7163/work/142249682

Keywords

Keywords

  • Animals, Blotting, Northern, Computational Biology/methods, Electroporation, Female, Gene Expression Profiling/methods, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing/methods, Immunohistochemistry, In Situ Hybridization, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, MicroRNAs/genetics, Neural Stem Cells/cytology, Neurogenesis/genetics, Neurons/cytology