Epigenetic Regulation of Neural Stem Cell Fate

Ming-Tao Zhao, Zhi-Xing An*, Feng-Jun Liu, Yong Zhang*
(College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A & F University, Yangling 712100, China)

Abstract Currently it is the focus of neural developmental biology to unravel the regulation of neurogenesis and differentiation mechanisms of neural stem cells, which have broad prospect in understanding the principle of the plasticity of stem cells and clinical therapy for neurodegenerative diseases. Recent studies have showed that epigenetic regulation plays an important role in the control of neural stem cell growth and differentiation. These epigenetic controls include the effects of histone acetylation/deacetylation, DNA methylation and noncoding RNAs on cell fate specification.

Key words histone acetylation/deacetylation; DNA methylation; miRNA; neural stem cell

Received: December 5, 2005 Accepted: April 4, 2006
*Corresponding author. Tel: 86-21-87080092, E-mail: anxbull@yahoo.com.cn