CHARGE syndrome protein CHD7 regulates epigenomic activation of enhancers in granule cell precursors and gyrification of the cerebellum.

Regulation of chromatin plays fundamental roles in the development of the brain. Haploinsufficiency of the chromatin remodeling enzyme CHD7 causes CHARGE syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the development of the cerebellum. However, how CHD7 controls chromatin states in the cerebellum remains incompletely understood.

Photoreceptor responses to light in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy.

Vision loss, among the most feared complications of diabetes, is primarily caused by diabetic retinopathy, a disease that manifests in well-recognized, characteristic microvascular lesions. The reasons for retinal susceptibility to damage in diabetes are unclear, especially considering that microvascular networks are found in all tissues. However, the unique metabolic demands of retinal neurons could account for their vulnerability in diabetes.

Chromatin Environment and Cellular Context Specify Compensatory Activity of Paralogous MEF2 Transcription Factors.

Compensation among paralogous transcription factors (TFs) confers genetic robustness of cellular processes, but how TFs dynamically respond to paralog depletion on a genome-wide scale in vivo remains incompletely understood. Using single and double conditional knockout of myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) family TFs in granule neurons of the mouse cerebellum, we find that MEF2A and MEF2D play functionally redundant roles in cerebellar-dependent motor learning. Although both TFs are highly expressed in granule neurons, transcriptomic analyses show MEF2D is the predominant genomic regulator of gene expression in vivo.

The Transcriptional Regulator SnoN Promotes the Proliferation of Cerebellar Granule Neuron Precursors in the Postnatal Mouse Brain.

Control of neuronal precursor cell proliferation is essential for normal brain development, and deregulation of this fundamental developmental event contributes to brain diseases. Typically, neuronal precursor cell proliferation extends over long periods of time during brain development. However, how neuronal precursor proliferation is regulated in a temporally specific manner remains to be elucidated.