Maturation of a central brain flight circuit in Drosophila requires Fz2/Ca2+ signaling

  1. Tarjani Agrawal
  2. Gaiti Hasan  Is a corresponding author
  1. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India

Abstract

The final identity of a differentiated neuron is determined by multiple signaling events, including activity dependent calcium transients. Non-canonical Frizzled2 (Fz2) signaling generates calcium transients that determine neuronal polarity, neuronal migration and synapse assembly in the developing vertebrate brain. Here, we demonstrate a requirement for Fz2/Ca2+ signaling in determining the final differentiated state of a set of central brain dopaminergic neurons in Drosophila, referred to as the PAM cluster. Knockdown or inhibition of Fz2/Ca2+ signaling during maturation of the flight circuit in pupae reduces Tyrosine Hydroxylase (TH) expression in the PAM neurons and affects maintenance of flight. Thus we demonstrate that Fz2/Ca2+ transients during development serve as a pre-requisite for normal adult behavior. Our results support a neural mechanism where PAM neuron send projections to the α' and β' lobes of a higher brain centre, the mushroom body, and function in dopaminergic re-inforcement of flight.

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Author details

  1. Tarjani Agrawal

    National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Gaiti Hasan

    National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India
    For correspondence
    gaiti@ncbs.res.in
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Copyright

© 2015, Agrawal & Hasan

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Tarjani Agrawal
  2. Gaiti Hasan
(2015)
Maturation of a central brain flight circuit in Drosophila requires Fz2/Ca2+ signaling
eLife 4:e07046.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07046

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07046

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