We identified perhaps the first specific early marker of dorsal MGE-derived cortical interneurons: cMaf (Figure 7). cMaf and Mafb expression are dependent on Zfhx1b and Dlx1/2 function (Figure 7, S2A-C’, S3D-F’, S6D-S6F’ and S6BB-S6DD’ (Cobos, 2006; Long et al., 2009a; Long et al., 2009b) Notably, neither cMaf, nor Mafb are strongly expressed prenatally in neurons of the striatum (interneurons and medium spiny neurons), suggesting that prenatally they may be specific markers of the cortical interneuron lineage. Currently, Maf function in the brain has only been studied in the hindbrain (Cordes and Barsh, 1994).
