Muscle niche-driven Insulin-Notch-Myc cascade reactivates dormant Adult Muscle Precursors in Drosophila
Abstract
How stem cells specified during development keep their non-differentiated quiescent state, and how they are reactivated, remain poorly understood. Here we applied a Drosophila model to follow in vivo behavior of Adult Muscle Precursors (AMPs), the transient fruit fly muscle stem cells. We report that emerging AMPs send out thin filopodia that make contact with neighboring muscles. AMPs keep their filopodia-based association with muscles throughout their dormant state but also when they start to proliferate, suggesting that muscles could play a role in AMP reactivation. Indeed, our genetic analyses indicate that muscles send inductive dIlp6 signals that switch the Insulin pathway ON in closely associated AMPs. This leads to the activation of Notch, which regulates AMP proliferation via dMyc. Altogether, we report that Drosophila AMPs display homing behavior to muscle niche and that the niche-driven Insulin-Notch-dMyc cascade plays a key role in setting the activated state of AMPs.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Margaret Buckingham, Institut Pasteur, France
Version history
- Received: May 3, 2015
- Accepted: October 28, 2015
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 9, 2015 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: January 29, 2016 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2015, Aradhya et al.
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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