Sensory neurons from mice lacking the Brn-3b POU family transcription factor are resistant to death-inducing stimuli both in vitro and in vivo.
The critical role for programmed cell death in the normal development of the nervous system and the abnormal cell death that occurs in human neurodegenerative diseases renders it of vital importance to identify factors that enhance or reduce the levels of cell death in specific neuronal cells in the nervous system. We show that the Brn-3b transcription factor is essential for normal cell death responses in the peripheral nervous system and that in its absence neurons are resistant to a variety of death-inducing stimuli both in vitro and in vivo.