Meis homeobox genes control progenitor competence in the retina
Naoko Dupacova, Barbora Antosova, Jan Pačes, Zbyněk Kozmík
Abstract
Significance The retina is derived from the neuroepithelium in the vertebrate. During retinal development, three spatially patterned domains are formed, namely the ciliary margin zone, the optic disc, and a region that contains retinal progenitor cells. Little is known about the mechanisms that regulate this patterning and specification. In this study, we show that retinal regionalization is impaired in the Meis1 and Meis2 compound-null retina in mice. By analyzing transcriptomic and epigenomic profiles, we map and characterize the Meis-dependent gene regulatory network within the embryonic retina. We propose that Meis1 and Meis2 function redundantly to promote expression of retinal progenitor cell-specific genes, while simultaneously restricting ciliary margin zone- and optic disc-specific genes.