Nurr1 maintains fiber integrity and nuclear-encoded mitochondrial gene expression in dopamine neurons. Mus musculus

Nurr1 (Nr4a2, nuclear receptor subfamily 4 group A member 2) is needed for the development of ventral midbrain dopaminergic neurons, and has been associated with Parkinson's disease. We used mice where the Nurr1 gene is ablated by tamoxifen treatment selectively in dopaminergic neurons. As a control, we used tamoxifen-treated mice where Nurr1 is not ablated. By laser microdissection of neurons selected by their TH1 (Th1l, TH1-like homolog) gene expression, we selected dopaminergic neurons for RNA extraction and high-throughput mRNA sequencing, in order to identify genes regulated by Nurr1. We found the main functional category of Nurr1-regulated genes are the nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes. Overall design: Dopaminergic neurons with or without Nurr1 knocked out. TH-positive neurons were laser capture microdissected from cryostat coronal sections of the midbrain.