HaeChul Park, Jimann Shin, Jennifer Miller and Julia Snyder

We use transgenic reporter genes, fate mapping and clonal analysis, conditional gene expression transgenics and mutants to investigate the mechanisms that specify neural precursors to develop as oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cell type of the vertebrate central nervous system. In particular, we test the roles of the Notch, Hedgehog and Wnt signaling pathways in regulating formation of oligodendrocytes, and we screen for new mutations that change the number of oligodendrocytes in embryos.