Mitochondrials may promote the transition of neural stem cells to neuron cells during brain development.

The brain is made up of billions of different neurons, and when stem cells stop self-renewal and differentiate into special types of neurons, they first appear in the developing brain, a process known as neurogenesis, which is precisely regulated to produce complex structures in the brain, and researchers believe that small differences in the way neural stem cells produce neurons may be the source of the increased size and complexity of the brain.
in-depth analysis of the process, the researchers conducted an in-depth study of mitochondrials in cells.
Researcher Professor Vanderhaeghen said that diseases caused by mitochondrial defects often cause developmental problems in multiple organs, especially the brain, which we often think is related to the important function of mitochondrials that are not energyed by cells, but this may actually be part of a "story", and recent research in the field of stem cells has shown that mitochondrial experience has a direct impact on organ development, and now researchers have analyzed whether and how this happens in the brain. In the
study, researchers analyzed whether and how mitochondrial remodeling is linked to the fate of neurons, a highly dynamic cellular device that fuses and divides, so they wanted to know if these dynamic changes were related to changes in the fate of multiple stem cells.
, the researchers note that shortly after stem cell division, self-renewing mitochondrials in child cells merge, and subgeneration cells that transform into neurons have high levels of division.
increased mitochondrial division actually promotes the differentiation of the fate of neuron cells, while the fusion of mitochondrials after silk division also re-guides child cells to the stage of self-renewal.
So the dynamic changes in mitochondrials are important for transforming into neuron cells, said researcher Pillre Casimir, who said the effect of mitochondrial dynamics on cell fate selection may be limited by a specific time window, which is interestingly twice as long as in mice.
Previous studies have focused on decisions about fate before neural stem cell division, and the results suggest that cell fate can be affected over a longer period of time, even after neural stem cell classification, which may be of great application to the current field of cell reprogramming, where scientists try to convert non-neuron cells directly into neuron cells for therapeutic purposes.
Finally, the researchers say that human cells may take longer to maintain plasticity than mouse cells, which may help increase the ability of human ancestral cells to renew themselves, thereby promoting brain development and enhancing the body's cognitive abilities, and that mitochondrials, as small cells that evolved in cells a billion years ago, may have made a significant contribution to the evolution of the human brain, and that later scientists will continue to delve into the key role mitochondrials play in human health.
original source: Ryohei Iwata1, Pierre Casimir, Pierre Vanderhaeghen.Mitochondrial Dynamics in postmitotic cells regulate neurogenesis, Science14 Aug 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6505, pp. 858-862 DOI:10.1126/science.aba9760.