Effects of PAX6 deletion in Day 10 human stem cell derived cortical organoids

PAX6 is a highly evolutionarily conserved transcription factor essential for healthy brain formation and exerts high-level control over cortical development. PAX6 has previously been identified as a human neuoectoderm cell fate determinant, but its precise role remains largely unstudied due to the practical and ethical limitations of investigating early embryonic events. In this project, we use PAX6 knockout human induced pluripotent stem cells to generate cortical organoids in a directed protocol to investigate the role of PAX6 during early neurodevelopment and identify which specific pathways are most affected in the absence of PAX6.