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Review
. 2020 Oct 20;21(20):7742.
doi: 10.3390/ijms21207742.

MYC in Brain Development and Cancer

Olga Zaytseva  1 , Nan-Hee Kim  1 , Leonie M Quinn  1
Affiliations
Review

MYC in Brain Development and Cancer

Olga Zaytseva et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The MYC family of transcriptional regulators play significant roles in animal development, including the renewal and maintenance of stem cells. Not surprisingly, given MYC's capacity to promote programs of proliferative cell growth, MYC is frequently upregulated in cancer. Although members of the MYC family are upregulated in nervous system tumours, the mechanisms of how elevated MYC promotes stem cell-driven brain cancers is unknown. If we are to determine how increased MYC might contribute to brain cancer progression, we will require a more complete understanding of MYC's roles during normal brain development. Here, we evaluate evidence for MYC family functions in neural stem cell fate and brain development, with a view to better understand mechanisms of MYC-driven neural malignancies.

Keywords: MYC; brain cancer; brain development; neural stem cells.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
MYC and MYCN are highly expressed in neural precursors during mammalian development. (A) MYCN expression is high in the neuroectoderm and the neural tube. During the neural tube formation, MYC expression is high in the neural crest. (B) At later stages of development, the cortex is layered into distinct zones. VZ, ventricular zone, SVZ, subventricular zone, IZ, intermediate zone, CP, cortical plate, MZ, medullary zone. MYC protein expression was observed in VZ, SVZ and CP.
Figure 2
Figure 2
MYC and MYCN functions in the neural lineage.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Myc promotes Drosophila neural stem cell renewal. (A) Myc is high in neural stem cells in the larval brain (neural lineage marked with Deadpan, green). Type I neuroblasts (NB) directly produce ganglion mother cell (GMC) progenitors, while Type II produce GMCs via a transit-amplifying intermediate progenitor lineage. (B) Neuroblasts divide asymmetrically in order to self-renew and generate progenitors. Apical and basal factors are asymmetrically distributed during mitosis in order to specify the stem and progenitor cell fate of the daughters.
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