Neural Stem Cell Transcription Factors

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Neural stem cells are a self-renewing population that gives rise to cells of the nervous system, including astrocytes, neurons, and oligodendrocytes. Neural stem cell maintenance and differentiation decisions are regulated, in part, by signal transduction pathways that culminate in transcription factor expression. For example, Pax6 and HES-1 regulate the expression of genes that are important for neural stem cell proliferation and multipotency. Neural stem cell differentiation into cells of the neural lineage is thought to be influenced by Olig2, while the combination of Olig1 and Olig2 induces oligodendrocyte cell fate determination.