Published on November 19, 2012 at 7:38 AM This discovery was
surprising because BCL6 is in fact a well known oncogene,
responsible for various blood cell cancers called lymphomas.
However, nothing was known about this gene in brain development.
To verify their intriguing observations, the scientists then
examined a transgenic mouse model where the BCL6 gene was
disrupted. They found that in these mutant mice, the cerebral
cortex was significantly smaller and contained less nerve cells.
These data thus indicate that BCL6 is actually required during
normal brain development for the proper production of cortical
neurons. They went on to elucidate the underlying molecular
mechanisms and showed that BCL6 acts together with a gene called
Sirt1 to repress actors of the Notch pathway that are involved
in the self-renewal of neural stem cells. This repression
phenomenon is "epigenetic" and drives neural stem cells
irreversibly towards differentiation into cortical neurons. This
basic work opens many questions and pers