Transcription profiling of mouse cortex (rostral and caudal) of AP2gamma knockouts and control mic revels transcription factor AP2gamma regulates the number of basal progenitors

Understanding the mechanisms that specify neuronal subtypes is important to unravel the complex mechanisms of neuronal circuit assembly. Here we have identified a novel role for the transcription factor AP2gamma in progenitor and neuronal subtype specification in the cerebral cortex. Conditional deletion of AP2gamma causes misspecification of basal progenitors starting at; mid-neurogenesis and gain-of-function experiments show that AP2gamma directly regulates the expression of several genes characteristic for basal progenitors, such as Math3 and Tbr2. The misspecification of basal progenitors upon loss of AP2gamma resulted in their increased death and the ultimate reduction of callosal layer II/III projection neurons. This had pronounced effects on visual performance with a strong reduction of visual acuity. Thus, we have identified a novel regulator of basal progenitor fate regulating the number of layer II/III neurons in an area-specific manner and revealing their importance for accurate function of the visual cortex. Experiment Overall Design: We analysed 12 samples from the cortex (rostral and caudal) of AP2gamma k.o. mice and control mice. For each of the 4 groups (caudal ko, caudal wt, rostral ko, rostral wt) three biological replicates were analysed.