Deciphering the role of Cdk1 in adult neural stem cells.

In mammals, the hippocampus is one of the few sites which produce new neurons throughout life. This process, known as adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN), takes place in the dentate gyrus (DG) and corresponds to a sequence of cellular events undergone by neurogenic cells, including proliferation, neuronal commitment, survival, migration and maturation of newborn neurons. The role of AHN in certain hippocampal dependent functions such as memory, pattern separation and learning has been established. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that underly AHN may provide new insights for therapeutic strategies in pathologies involving cognitive deficit. Cyclin dependent kinase 1 (Cdk1) is well established as a crucial regulator of the cell cycle in mammals and is thus expressed in proliferative cells. There is also evidence that this protein takes part in different cellular functions such as epigenetic regulation, mitochondrial respiration, or cell death. In order to study the role of Cdk1 in AHN, we used mice models bearing a constitutive or conditional loss of function allele of Cdk1. Our preliminary data suggest that Cdk1 is a haploinsufficient gene. Moreover, we identified a role for Cdk1 in the positioning of adult-born neurons in the DG. Further experiments are ongoing to confirm that role and to identify the mechanisms by which Cdk1 regulates this process.