Up-regulation of HP1γ expression during neuronal maturation promotes axonal and dendritic development in mouse embryonic neocortex.

Immature neurons undergo morphological and physiological changes including axonal and dendritic development to establish neuronal networks. As the transcriptional status changes at a large number of genes during neuronal maturation, global changes in chromatin modifiers may take place in this process. We now show that the amount of heterochromatin protein 1γ (HP1γ) increases during neuronal maturation in the mouse neocortex.

Nucleocytoplasmic translocation of HDAC9 regulates gene expression and dendritic growth in developing cortical neurons.

Transcriptional regulation of gene expression is thought to play a pivotal role in activity-dependent neuronal differentiation and circuit formation. Here, we investigated the role of histone deacetylase 9 (HDAC9), which regulates transcription by histone modification, in the development of neocortical neurons. The translocation of HDAC9 from nucleus to cytoplasm was induced by an increase of spontaneous firing activity in cultured mouse cortical neurons.