[6] Amongst the last ones, MSI2 is expressed in early stages of development, in the ventricular and subventricular zone,[8] in cells of the astrocyte lineage.

The first musashi (abbreviation MSI) gene was first discovered in Drosophila and then later identified in other eukaryotic species.

MSI2 belongs to the RNA-processing group of proteins which are associated with the transcription factor SOX2 during the early stages of differentiation.

MSI2 has a high influence on it too, since the gain or loss of self-renewal capacity and the extent of differentiation depends on MSI2 levels.

Although both of the isoforms of this protein are needed to the maintenance of the self-renewal, they are different on a functional way and they play different roles in some aspects of the process.

[12] In a similar way to MSI1, MSI2 is also active in the proliferation of pluripotent neural precursors cells of the embryo, during which both MSI1 and MSI2 are strongly co-expressed.

Therefore, MSI2 plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of CNS stem cells through post-transcriptional gene regulation.

[6] As Musashi-2 is involved in the generation of hematopoietic cells, it is also linked with cancer pathologies: It has been found that MSI2 plays an important role in myeloid leukemia.

[14] The high expression of MSI2 interrupts the cellular differentiation and allows the expansion of immature leukemic cells causing the progress to the deadly phase.

[6] In order to prove this, it has been demonstrated that with MSI’s knockdown leads to a rising apoptosis and differentiation and to a decreasing proliferation.

[15] This article incorporates text from the United States National Library of Medicine, which is in the public domain.