Transkripsiyon faktörü NeuroD2'nin hedef genlerinin bulunması

For an organism to examine its environment and develop a behavior is fundamental for its survival. Nervous system plays a central role to gather information and to create a response for fight or flight. In higher organisms, brain is the core of this system. It has unique complexity due to numerous cell types and their communications among themselves. This complexity enables us to learn, to remember, and to perform the simplest movements. Development of nervous system is under the control of various transcription factors, basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors constituting the biggest family among them. Neurogenic Differentiation factor 2 (NeuroD2) belonging to basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor family has been characterized as a key player in neurogenesis. Genome-wide identification of direct target gene of transcription factors gives comprehensive insight to complexity of gene regulatory network. Although NeuroD2 emerges as an important transcription factor in neurogenesis, its genome-wide target genes are poorly understood. Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-Seq) is one of the powerful tools to investigate transcription factor binding profiles genome-wide. In this study, I have identified the direct target genes of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor, NeuroD2 by performing ChIP experiment followed by high throughput sequencing in postnatal cerebral cortical tissues from mice under physiological conditions.