Neurogenins are a family of bHLH transcription factors involved in specifying neuronal differentiation. They are related to Drosophila

Drosophila

Drosophila is a genus of small flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "fruit flies" or more appropriately pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit...

 atonal.

The neurogenins (ngns) make up one of these atonal-related gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 families. In neural crest

Neural crest

Neural crest cells are a transient, multipotent, migratory cell population unique to vertebrates that gives rise to a diverse cell lineage including melanocytes, craniofacial cartilage and bone, smooth muscle, peripheral and enteric neurons and glia....

 cells, the atonal-related neurogenin family is particularly important for the sensory lineage (neurogenins are essential for the formation of dorsal root ganglia), while the achaete-scute homologue ash1 (Mash1) is important for aspects of autonomic neurogenesis

Neurogenesis

Neurogenesis is the process by which neurons are generated from neural stem and progenitor cells. Most active during pre-natal development, neurogenesis is responsible for populating the growing brain with neurons. Recently neurogenesis was shown to continue in several small parts of the brain of...

 (Mash1 is essential for noradrenergic differentiation).

Types

• Neurogenin-1 is expressed in and required for specification of dopaminergic progenitor cells.
• Neurogenin-2
• Neurogenin-3 promotes pancreatic development.