Page 17 - IBRO_RNA School_Abstract Book
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Musashi1: the double edged sword in neurodevelopment
Pavithra L Chavali
CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology,
Hyderabad, India
During normal development, the cell cycle machinery has two important tasks–to
ensure (i) maintenance of genome integrity and (ii) that cell division occurs in a
temporally controlled fashion. This is best exemplified in the developing fetal brain,
wherein defective cell division or cell death can lead to impaired brain size
and function. Autosomal primary recessive microcephaly (MCPH) is one
such neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in reduced brain size at birth. The
mamma-lian cortex undergoes a stringently controlled expansion regulated by
mechanisms and proteins that keep the balance between asymmetric and
symmetric cell divisions, controlled by RNA binding proteins and post
transcriptional regulatory mech-anisms. In mammals, Musashi family of RNA
binding proteins, namely Musashi1 (Msi1) and Musashi2 (Msi2) are shown to be
important during development. I shall discuss about our findings on the
neurodevelopmental roles of Msi1 and how Msi1 specifically promotes Zika viral
replication and causes fetal abnormalities. Finally, I will present some of our recent
findings on delineating the specific roles of Msi1 versus Msi2.
