Homeotic Transformations of Neuronal Cell Identities

Paola Arlotta; Oliver Hobert

doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015.10.005

Homeotic Transformations of Neuronal Cell Identities

Trends Neurosci. 2015 Dec;38(12):751-762. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2015.10.005.

Authors

Paola Arlotta¹, Oliver Hobert²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: Paola_Arlotta@harvard.edu.
² Department of Biology and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: or38@columbia.edu.

PMID: 26596501
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2015.10.005

Abstract

Homeosis is classically defined as the transformation of one body part into something that resembles another body part. We propose here to broaden the concept of homeosis to the many neuronal cell identity transformations that have been uncovered over the past few years upon removal of specific regulatory factors in organisms from Caenorhabditis elegans to Drosophila, zebrafish, and mice. The concept of homeosis provides a framework for the evolution of cell type diversity in the brain.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Animals, Genetically Modified
Biological Evolution
Brain / physiology
Humans
Morphogenesis / physiology*
Neurons / physiology*
Plants

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding