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Neurogenesis

A mother–daughter relationship

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 10, page 833 (2009)Cite this article

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The centrosome has at its core a pair of centrioles, of which one (the 'mother' centriole) is older than the other. During mitosis, the centrioles are duplicated and the two resulting centrosomes — each consisting of one of the cell's original centrioles and one newly synthesized centriole — are distributed to the two daughter cells. This pattern of segregation means that only one daughter cell inherits the original, older mother centriole. Could the ages of the centrioles inherited by the daughter cells have a role in determining their subsequent development?

The authors labelled the centriole component centrin 1 with a protein that can be converted, by violet light exposure, from one that emits green fluorescence to one that emits red fluorescence in the brains of mice at embryonic day 13.5. Following photoconversion and two rounds of mitosis, most cells containing red centrin 1 (centrin 1 that existed at the time of photoconversion) were located in the VZ and co-expressed PAX6, a radial glial marker. By contrast, most cells containing only green (newly synthesized) centrin 1 had migrated out of this region and co-expressed a neuronal marker. This suggested that the older mother centriole was preferentially inherited by the daughter cell that became a self-renewing progenitor.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Wang, X. et al. Asymmetric centrosome inheritance maintains neural progenitors in the neocortex. Nature 461, 947–955 (2009)

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Authors
  1. Katherine Whalley
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Whalley, K. A mother–daughter relationship. Nat Rev Neurosci 10, 833 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2767

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