0000000000379119
AUTHOR
Dagmar Volland
Ems and Nkx6 are central regulators in dorsoventral patterning of the Drosophila brain
In central nervous system development, the identity of neural stem cells (neuroblasts) critically depends on the precise spatial patterning of the neuroectoderm in the dorsoventral (DV) axis. Here, we uncover a novel gene regulatory network underlying DV patterning in the Drosophila brain, and show that the cephalic gap gene empty spiracles (ems) and the Nk6 homeobox gene (Nkx6) encode key regulators. The regulatory network implicates novel interactions between these and the evolutionarily conserved homeobox genes ventral nervous system defective (vnd), intermediate neuroblasts defective (ind) and muscle segment homeobox (msh). We show that Msh cross-repressively interacts with Nkx6 to sust…
Segment-specific requirements for dorsoventral patterning genes during early brain development in Drosophila.
An initial step in the development of the Drosophila central nervous system is the delamination of a stereotype population of neural stem cells (neuroblasts, NBs) from the neuroectoderm. Expression of the columnar genes ventral nervous system defective (vnd), intermediate neuroblasts defective (ind) and muscle segment homeobox (msh) subdivides the truncal neuroectoderm(primordium of the ventral nerve cord) into a ventral, intermediate and dorsal longitudinal domain, and has been shown to play a key role in the formation and/or specification of corresponding NBs. In the procephalic neuroectoderm(pNE, primordium of the brain), expression of columnar genes is highly complex and dynamic, and th…