SnoN2 knockdown unexpectedly led to a striking branching phenotype in granule neurons characterized by numerous protrusions emanating from the axon shaft (Figure 1C and Figure S1A, available online). In time course analyses, the percentage of cells with exuberant axon branching increased over time (Figure 1D). Quantification of the number of axon branches per neuron revealed that SnoN2 knockdown

increased the number of both secondary and tertiary axon branches (Figure 1E). By contrast to the robust axon-branching Selleck INCB018424 phenotype in SnoN2 knockdown neurons, SnoN1 knockdown failed to increase axon branching (Figures 1C–1E and Figure S1A). Interestingly, neither SnoN1 RNAi nor SnoN2 RNAi reduced axon length (Figure S1B). Because pan-SnoN RNAi reduces axon length in granule neurons Selleckchem Antidiabetic Compound Library (Stegmüller et al., 2006), these results suggest that SnoN1 and SnoN2 have redundant functions in axon growth. In agreement with this conclusion, the combination of SnoN1 RNAi and SnoN2 RNAi reduced axon length, thus phenocopying the effect of pan-SnoN RNAi on axon growth (Figure 1J and Figures S1C and S1D) (Stegmüller et al., 2006). In addition, although pan-SnoN RNAi induced robust downregulation of the axon growth-promoting signaling molecule Ccd1, a transcriptional target of SnoN (Ikeuchi et al., 2009), SnoN1 RNAi or SnoN2

RNAi alone failed to reduce Ccd1 mRNA levels in neurons (Figure S1E). In other experiments, SnoN1 RNAi and SnoN2 RNAi had little or no effect on neuron survival suggesting that the morphological phenotypes were not due to impaired cell health (Figure S1F). SnoN1 RNAi and SnoN2 RNAi failed to alter the expression of the granule neuron marker MEF2A (data not shown) suggesting that the morphology phenotypes were not secondary to a change in the general differentiation state of granule neurons. Taken together, these results suggest that SnoN2 RNAi specifically impairs the restriction of axon branching in neurons. To determine whether the SnoN2 RNAi-induced effect on neuronal morphology is the result

of specific knockdown of SnoN2, we performed a rescue experiment. We generated an expression plasmid encoding SnoN2 by using a cDNA containing silent mutations. SnoN2 RNAi induced knockdown Thymidine kinase of SnoN2 encoded by wild-type cDNA (SnoN2-WT) but not the RNAi-resistant cDNA (SnoN2-RES) (Figure 1F). Importantly, expression of SnoN2-RES but not SnoN2-WT in the background of SnoN2 RNAi in granule neurons restored axon branching to levels similar to that of control-transfected neurons (Figures 1G and 1H). Expression of SnoN2 in the absence of SnoN2 RNAi in granule neurons had little or no effect on axon branching (data not shown). These results support the conclusion that the SnoN2 RNAi-induced axon-branching phenotype is the result of specific knockdown of SnoN2. Because exuberant branching is not observed in neurons expressing pan-SnoN shRNAs (Stegmüller et al.