Oligodendrocyte development in the spinal cord and telencephalon: common themes and new perspectives

There are clear parallels between oligodendrocyte development in the spinal cord and forebrain. However, there is new evidence that in both of these r egions oligodendrocyte lineage development may be more complex than we earl ier thought. This stems from the recent identification of three new transcr iption factor genes. Olig1, Olig2 and Sox10, that are expressed from the ea rly stages of oligodendrocyte lineage development. In this article, we high light the common themes underlying specification and early development of o ligodendrocytes: in the spinal cord and telencephalon. Then, we discuss rec ent studies of Sox10 and the Olig genes and their implications for oligoden drocyte specification. We conclude that although the mechanisms of oligoden drogenesis appear to be fundamentally similar at different rostro-caudal le vels of the neuraxis, there an still many unanswered questions about the de tails of oligodendrocyte specification. (C) 2001 ISDN. Published by Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.