OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Neurons of the central nervous system possess very diverse morphologies, neurotransmitter identities, electrical properties and preferences for synaptic partners. How are all these different properties specified and maintained? We are applying the new Targeted DamID (TaDa) (Southall et al., 2013) technique to profile the transcriptional state of specific neuronal populations in vivo, with the aim of identifying key transcriptional regulators. A comparison of cholinergic, GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons has revealed a number of transcription factors that are specific or highly enriched in the respective cell types. Initial characterisation of candidates has identified an Ets transcription factor that inhibits cholinergic fate. Furthermore, our TaDa data suggests that this type of cross-repressive mechanism might be common for neurotransmitter specification and maintenance.
We are also interested in dedifferentiation in the nervous system, and are investigating the mechanisms by which the transcription factor Lola prevents neurons reverting to a neural stem cell fate (Southall et al., 2014). Interestingly, we have recently identified a small ORF peptide, encoded by a long non-coding RNA, which interacts with Lola and may regulate its function.
