Chromodomain protein CDYL confers forebrain identity to human cortical organoids by inhibiting neuronatin [ChIP-seq]

Fate determination of neural stem cells is crucial for cerebral cortex development and is closely linked to neurodevelopmental disorders when gene expression networks are disrupted. The transcriptional corepressor chromodomain Y-like (CDYL) is widely expressed across diverse cell populations within the human embryonic cortex, though its precise role in this complex developmental process remains unclear. Here, we show that CDYL is critical for human cortical neurogenesis. CDYL deficiency leads to a substantial increase in gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic neurons in human cortical organoids, instead of the expected generation of typical cortical neurons. Subsequently, neuronatin (NNAT) is identified as a significant target of CDYL in this process, and its abnormal expression obviously influences the proliferation and fate commitment of cortical neural stem cells (NSCs) within human cortical organoids. Cross-species comparisons of CDYL targets unravel a distinct developmental trajectory between human cortical organoids and mouse cortex at an analogous stage. Collectively, our data provide insight into the evolutionary roles of CDYL in human cortex development, emphasizing the critical function of CDYL in maintaining the fate of human cortical NSCs. cortical organoids generated from CDYL +/+ and CDYL -/- human ESCs are collected at day 30; mouse cortex at E15.5 were collected