research: making brains

30 September 2005

Genes coding for proteins found in the mitotic spindle have been discovered to play a key role in controlling brain size.

Dr Geoff Woods (a Wellcome Clinical Research Fellow at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research) and colleagues have been studying inherited disorders that lead to small brain size (microcephaly). The group identified two genes – CDK5RAP2 and CENPJ – whose mutation leads to microcephaly, and discovered that the genes were active in brain tissue during fetal development.

Looking closer, the group found that the protein products of these two genes were located in centromeres – the structures that act as anchors for the mitotic spindle, the intracellular cables that separate chromosomes during cell division.

These findings suggest that CDK5RAP2 and CENPJ are part of the system that controls the number of neurons made in the brain, and hence brain size.

Bond J et al. A centrosomal mechanism involving CDK5RAP2 and CENPJ controls brain size. Nat Genet 2005;37(4):353–5.

See also

• A longer article on this and related research can be found in the first issue of Wellcome Science.