During embryonic development, our cells continually receive numerous stimuli and respond to them via intracellular signals. A key question is to understand how these multiple signals, which sometimes oppose each other, interact to guide the behavior of our cells in a coherent manner in order to form healthy organs and individuals. Alexia Cossard and two other members of the laboratory of Professor Yves Jossin from the Institute of Neurosciences at UCLouvain recently made an important discovery by identifying a key interaction between proteins, called MKL/SRF and Bcl6. They showed that, during brain development, this interaction is essential to ensure proper growth and positioning of cortical cells. To do so, MKL/SRF and Bcl6 induce opposite choices in the behavior of progenitor cells when they must decide to multiply themselves or produce neurons, but also choose to move within the tissue. Moreover, when these proteins meet, they cancel each other out. An equilibrium is then established resulting from a tug of war between the two proteins. Disruptions in these processes can contribute to health conditions such as microcephaly, epilepsy, mental retardation, and other brain disorders. The researchers believe this discovery could open the road for new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for brain diseases in children. This study has been published in the prestigious American scientific journal “Science Advances”, highlighting its importance in the biomedical field.
Link to the original manuscript: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add0676