Seminars

During development of the central nervous system specific programs of gene expression underlie the formation of precise synaptic connections that ultimately give rise to higher cognitive function. In my lab, an expression profiling approach identified genes that were specifically upregulated during the phases of neuronal proliferation and synapse formation in the developing rodent brain (Diaz et al., Neuron, 2002). Two major projects are ongoing in my lab: the role of the transcription factor Mxd3 in cerebellar granule neuron proliferation (Yun et al., Mol Cell Biol, 2007) and the role of a novel family of conserved postsynaptic transmembrane proteins SynDIG1 in excitatory synapse development (Kalashnikova et al., Neuron, 2010). Intriguingly, misregulation of Mxd3 and SynDIG1 are implicated in neurological and psychiatric diseases such as brain tumors (Barisone et al., PLoS ONE, 2012) and schizophrenia, respectively.