A team of scientists led by Prof. ZHANG Lei at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, CAS have demonstrated that Lingerer regulates bantam microRNA to restrict organ size.
The highly conserved Hippo signaling pathway governs tissue growth and organ size by coordinating cell proliferation and apoptosis. Yorkie, a transcriptional coactivator, functions as the main effector of the Hippo pathway to regulate the expression of target genes that affect proliferation and apoptosis. One of its important targets is bantam microRNA (ban). The ban expression is reported to be regulated by Yorkie and Mad corporately through Hippo signaling and EGFR signaling.
By RNAi modifying screen in Drosophila melanogaster, researchers were able to identify Lingerer (Lig) as a growth suppressor. Loss of lig increased organ size and promoted the expression of ban and Hippo target genes, while overexpression of lig resulted in diminished ban expression and tissue size reduction. Researchers also demonstrated a dominant negative function of Lig C-terminal on growth and ban expression. Moreover, researchers addressed the regulatory relationships among Lig, ban and Yorkie/Mad. In addition, researchers showed that Lig physically interacted with and required Salvador to restrict cell growth.
This work entitled “Growth Suppressor Lingerer Regulates bantam microRNA to Restrict Organ Size” was published online by Journal of Molecular Cell Biology on 27 June, 2015.
This work was supported by grants from Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
CONTACT:
ZHANG Lei, Principal Investigator
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shanghai 200031, China.
Email: rayzhang@sibcb.ac.cn
Phone: +86-21-54921336.
Figure. A model of the regulation of organ growth by Lingerer (Image provided by Prof. ZHANG Lei’s Group)
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