A team of scientists led by Prof. Lei ZHANG at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have identified that Nervous fingers 1 (Nerfin-1) represses Notch activity in Drosophila medulla neurons and prevents them from dedifferentiation.
Drosophila larval central nervous system comprises the central brain, ventral nerve cord and optic lobe. In these regions, neuroblasts divide asymmetrically to self-renew and generate differentiated neurons or glia. It is obvious that mechanisms must be kept in place to prevent the cells from dedifferentiation.
Lei ZHANG and colleagues demonstrated that the zinc finger transcription factor Nerfin-1 is expressed in early stage of medulla neurons and essential for maintaining their differentiation. Loss of Nerfin-1 activates Notch signaling, which promotes neuron-to-NB reversion. Repressing Notch signaling largely rescues dedifferentiation in nerfin-1 mutant clones. These findings uncover a novel regulatory mechanism of neuronal maintenance in the optic lobe and reveal the presence of different regulatory modes between the optic lobe and the rest of CNS.
This work entitled “Prevention of medulla neuron dedifferentiation by Nerfin-1 requires inhibition of Notch activity” was published by Development on 11 April 2017.
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.
Keywords: Nerfin-1, medulla neurons, dedifferentiation, Notch signaling
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. Nerfin-1 depletion induces ectopic NBs in the medulla cortex of Drosophila larval brain (Image provided by ZHANG Lei’s Group)
Arrows show the clones. Dashed lines represent the CB-OL boundary. Dpn marks NBs and F-actin draws the outline. Scale bars: 20 μm.
Link: http://dev.biologists.org/content/144/8/1510
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