Goichi Miyoshi, PhD

Position:
Assistant Professor Tokyo Women's Medical University

Education and Training: 

• 2004-2015: Postdoctoral Fellow
• 2004: Ph.D. in Biostudy, Kyoto University, Ryoichiro Kageyama Lab
• 1999: B.Sc. in Engineering, Kyoto University

Current or Past Study:
I would like to understand how cortical interneuron specificity is determined during the course of brain development.  To this end, I wish to take advantage of the mouse genetics strategies that utilize site-specific recombinases, in order to switch on/off gene expression in vivo (Miyoshi and Fishell 2006)I have demonstrate that the Olig2-CreER driver line can be used to permanently label cortical interneuron populations emerging from the MGE at different time points.  From this I discovered that most MGE-derived cortical interneuron subtypes have distinct temporal origins (Miyoshi et al., 2007). To extend these observations, I am currently using another CreER driver line to label the cortical interneurons derived from the CGE (around 20% of total) at different time points.

In a separate project, I am studying the role of the Forkhead box transcription factor FoxG1, which is known to regulate the temporal specification of pyramidal neurons by suppressing early cell fate.  The role of FoxG1 in the ventral forebrain development, including the cortical interneuron specification, has not been thoroughly studied.  This is because in FoxG1 mutants, ventral forebrain never forms due to an early patterning defect. My interest in  FoxG1 is two-fold. First, I wish to determine whether Foxg1 has a role in specifying different subtypes of cortical interneurons. Second I have the timing of integration to the cortical plate, I am carrying out mosaic loss-of-function study on the conditional allele we have generated. (March, 2008)