Project description:Interneurons navigate along multiple tangential paths to settle into appropriate cortical layer. They undergo saltatory migration, which is paced by intermittent nuclear jumps whose regulation relies on interplay between extracellular cues and genetic-encoded information. However, it remains unclear how cycles of pause and movement are coordinated at the molecular level. Post-translational modification of proteins contributes to cell migration regulation. The present study uncovers that carboxypeptidase 1, which promotes deglutamylation, is a pivotal regulator of pausing of cortical interneurons. Moreover, we show that pausing during migration controls the flow of interneurons invading the cortex by generating heterogeinity in movement at the population level. Interfering with the regulation of pausing not only affects the size of the cortical interneuron cohort but also secondarily impairs the generation of age-matched upper layer projection neurons.
Project description:Organoid techniques provide unique platforms to model brain development and neurological disorders. While organoids recapitulating corticogenesis were established, a system modeling human medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) development, a critical ventral brain domain producing cortical interneurons and related lineages, remains to be developed. Here, we describe a system to generate MGE or cortex-specific organoids from human pluripotent stem cells. These organoids recapitulate the developments of MGE and cortex domains respectively. Population and single-cell transcriptomic profiling revealed transcriptional dynamics and lineage productions during MGE and cortical organoids development. Chromatin accessibility landscapes were found to be involved in this process. Furthermore, MGE and cortical organoids generated physiologically functional neurons and neuronal networks. Finally, we applied fusion organoids as a model to investigate human interneuron migration. Together, our study provides a new platform for generating domain-specific brain organoids, for modeling human interneuron migration, and offers deeper insight into molecular dynamics during human brain development.