| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 生命科學系暨基因體科學研究所 === 106 === The Hippo pathway is critical for regulating cellular growth and organ size. The transcriptional coactivator Yes-associated protein (Yap) is a core component of the Hippo pathway to control downstream gene expression. Although functions of Yap have been demonstrated in various tissues, roles of Yap in the development of the nervous system remains unclear. I crossed Nestin-Cre, which is expressed in most neural progenitor cells from Embryonic day 10.5 (E10.5), with Yapflox mice to generate Yap conditional knockout mice (Yap-cKO). I focused on the development of the neocortex. During cortical development, early-born projection neurons (PNs) stay in the deep layers while late-born PNs migrate to the upper layers. At postnatal day 0 (P0), the number of late-born PNs was decreased in Yap-cKO. Interestingly, more PNs expressed both deep-layer and upper-layer PN markers. I further used EdU incorporation to trace the cell fate and migration of those PNs generated at E15.5. Less EdU-positive cells were observed in Yap-cKO at P0, suggesting that less PNs were generated at E15.5. Importantly, the number of PNs positive for a deep layer marker Tbr1 was significantly increased in Yap-cKO. Together, my results indicate that Yap plays important roles in cell proliferation and laminar cell fate specification in developing neocortex.
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