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Updated: Nov 25, 2025

Analysis of Neural Crest Migration and Differentiation by Cross-species Transplantation
Published on: February 7, 2012
The many faces of Sox2 function in neural crest development
Yoshio Wakamatsu1, Masanori Uchikawa2
1Center for Translational and Advanced Animal Research on Human Diseases, Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Abstract:
Neural crest (NC) cells give rise to a wide variety of cell types and tissues, such as neurons and glial cells in the peripheral nervous system. Sox2, which encodes an HMG-box transcription factor, is known to mediate pluripotency of primordial germ cells and embryonic stem (ES)/induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and to regulate central nervous system development. Previous studies have revealed that Sox2 is also an important regulator of NC development. This review summarizes the well-established inhibitory roles of Sox2 in NC formation and subsequent neuronal differentiation of NC-derived cells. This review also covers recent studies suggesting additional roles for Sox2 in early NC development, neurogenesis, and glial differentiation of NC-derived cells.
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