On becoming neural: what the embryo can tell us about differentiating neural stem cells

THE EARLIEST STEPS OF EMBRYONIC NEURAL DEVELOPMENT ARE ORCHESTRATED BY SETS OF TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS THAT CONTROL AT LEAST THREE PROCESSES: the maintenance of proliferative, pluripotent precursors that expand the neural ectoderm; their transition to neurally committed stem cells comprising the neural plate; and the onset of differentiation of neural progenitors. The transition from one step to the next requires the sequential activation of each gene set and then its down-regulation at the correct developmental times. Herein, we review how these gene sets interact in a transcriptional network to regulate these early steps in neural development. A key gene in this regulatory network is FoxD4L1, a member of the forkhead box (Fox) family of transcription factors. Knock-down experiments in Xenopus embryos show that FoxD4L1 is required for the expression of the other neural transcription factors, whereas increased FoxD4L1 levels have three different effects on these genes: up-regulation of neural ectoderm precursor genes; transient down-regulation of neural plate stem cell genes; and down-regulation of neural progenitor differentiation genes. These different effects indicate that FoxD4L1 maintains neural ectodermal precursors in an immature, proliferative state, and counteracts premature neural stem cell and neural progenitor differentiation. Because it both up-regulates and down-regulates genes, we characterized the regions of the FoxD4L1 protein that are specifically involved in these transcriptional functions. We identified a transcriptional activation domain in the N-terminus and at least two domains in the C-terminus that are required for transcriptional repression. These functional domains are highly conserved in the mouse and human homologues. Preliminary studies of the related FoxD4 gene in cultured mouse embryonic stem cells indicate that it has a similar role in promoting immature neural ectodermal precursors and delaying neural progenitor differentiation. These studies in Xenopus embryos and mouse embryonic stem cells indicate that FoxD4L1/FoxD4 has the important function of regulating the balance between the genes that expand neural ectodermal precursors and those that promote neural stem/progenitor differentiation. Thus, regulating the level of expression of FoxD4 may be important in stem cell protocols designed to create immature neural cells for therapeutic uses.