Tangentially migrating transient glutamatergic neurons control neurogenesis and maintenance of cerebral cortical progenitor pools.

The relative contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic cues in the regulation of cortical neurogenesis remains a crucial challenge in developmental neurobiology. We previously reported that a transient population of glutamatergic neurons, the cortical plate (CP) transient neurons, migrates from the ventral pallium (VP) over long distances and participate in neocortical development. Here, we show that the genetic ablation of this population leads to a reduction in the number of cortical neurons especially fated to superficial layers. These defects result from precocious neurogenesis followed by a depletion of the progenitor pools. Notably, these changes progress from caudolateral to rostrodorsal pallial territories between E12.5 and E14.5 along the expected trajectory of the ablated cells. Conversely, we describe enhanced proliferation resulting in an increase in the number of cortical neurons in the Gsx2 mutants which present an expansion of the VP and a higher number of CP transient neurons migrating into the pallium. Our findings indicate that these neurons act to maintain the proliferative state of neocortical progenitors and delay differentiation during their migration from extraneocortical regions and, thus, participate in the extrinsic control of cortical neuronal numbers.