Kaneyasu Nishimura

Introduction Midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons are known to control several important functions in humans, such as voluntary movement, cognition, motivation, and reward. Among them, mDA neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) project to the caudate-putamen and form the nigrostriatal pathway, which controls voluntary movements. The loss of SNc DA neurons and of dopamine in the caudate-putamen is a defining feature of Parkinson disease (PD) ( Damier et al., 1999 Damier P.

During early development of mouse brain, LMX1A is expressed in midbrain14, whereas CORIN is expressed in FP9. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that VM cells including mDA progenitors can be purified by a combination of these two markers (Fig. 1a–c). To visualize midbrain cells, we produced an LMX1A::GFP KI mESC line. The cells were induced to differentiate into neuronal lineage by the serum-free floating culture of embryoid body-like aggregates with the quick reaggregation method (Fig. 1d)15.