The balance between proliferation and differentiation of stem cells and progenitors determines the size of an adult brain region. While the molecular mechanisms regulating proliferation and differentiation of cortical progenitors have been intensively studied, an analysis of the kinetics of progenitor choice between self-renewal and differentiation in vivo is, due to the technical difficulties, still unknown. Here we established a descriptive mathematical model to estimate the probability of self-renewal or differentiation of cortical progenitor behaviors in vivo, a variable we have termed the expansion coefficient. We have applied the model, one which depends only on experimentally measured parameters, to the developing mouse cortex where the expansive neuroepithelial cells and neurogenic radial glial progenitors are coexisting. Surprisingly, we found that the expansion coefficients of both neuroepithelium cells and radial glial progenitors follow the same developmental trajectory during cortical development, suggesting a common rule governing self-renewal/differentiation behaviors in mouse cortical progenitor differentiation.

干细胞和祖细胞的增殖与分化之间的平衡决定了成人大脑区域的大小。虽然已经深入研究了调节皮质祖细胞增殖和分化的分子机制，但是由于技术上的困难，对于体内自我更新和分化之间祖细胞选择动力学的分析仍是未知的。在这里，我们建立了一个描述性数学模型，以估计体内皮质皮质祖细胞行为自我更新或分化的可能性，该变量我们称为膨胀系数。我们已经将该模型（仅依赖于实验测量的参数）应用于正在发育的小鼠皮层，其中广泛存在的神经上皮细胞和神经源性radial神经胶质祖细胞共存。出奇，