Abstract
The EGF signaling pathway specifies neuronal identities in the Drosophila embryo by regulating developmental patterning genes such as intermediate neuroblasts defective (ind).EGFR is activated in the ventral midline and neurogenic ectoderm by the Spitz ligand,which is processed by the Rhomboid protease. CRISPR/Cas9 was used to delete defined rhomboid enhancers mediating expression at each site of Spitz processing. Surprisingly, the neurogenic ectoderm, not the ventral midline, was found to be the dominant source of EGF patterning activity. We suggest that Drosophila is undergoing an evolutionary transition in central nervous system (CNS)-organizing activity from the ventral midline to the neurogenic ectoderm.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 634-638 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Genes and Development |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We thank members of the Levine and Shvartsman laboratories for their invaluable comments and advice. We also thank Hongtao Chen and Thomas Gregor for providing many of the CRISPR/Cas9 plasmids used in our experiments, and Gary Laevsky and Evangelos G. Gatzogiannis for their expert help with imaging. W.A.R. was supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to M.S.L. (R35 GM118147). Y.G. and K.Y. were supported by an NIH grant to S.Y.S. (R01 GM086537). W.A.R., Y.G., S.Y.S., and M.S.L. conceived and designed the project; W.A.R. designed the CRISPR/Cas9 mutant flies; Y.G.,W.A.R., and K.Y. performed the imaging experiments;W.A.R. and Y.G. analyzed the results; andW.A.R., Y.G., S.Y. S., and M.S.L. wrote the manuscript.
Keywords
- Central nervous system
- Drosophila embryo
- EGFR regulatory networks
- Intermediate neuroblasts defective
- Rhomboid
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine