Genetic regulation of dentate gyrus morphogenesis

The dentate gyrus is one of the small number of forebrain areas that have continued adult neurogenesis. During development the dentate gyrus acquires the capacity for neurogenesis by generating a new neurogenic stem cell niche at the border between the hilus and dentate granule cell layer. This is in distinction to the other prominent zone of continued neurogenesis in the subventricular zone where neurons are born in a structure directly descended from the mid-gestation subventricular zone. The ability to generate this newly formed dentate neurogenic niche is controlled by the action of a number of genes during prenatal and early postnatal development that regulate the fate, survival, migration, expansion, and differentiation of the cellular components of the dentate neurogenic niche. In this review, we provide an updated framework discussing the molecular steps and genes involved in these early stages of dentate gyrus formation. We previously described a molecular framework for dentate gyrus morphogenesis that can be associated with specific gene defects (Li, G., Pleasure, S.J. (2005). Dev. Neurosci., 27, 93-99), and here we add additional recently described molecular players and discuss this framework.