1. Developmental Biology
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Multipotent versus differentiated cell fate selection in the developing Drosophila airways

  1. Ryo Matsuda
  2. Chie Hosono
  3. Christos Samakovlis  Is a corresponding author
  4. Kaoru Saigo
  1. Stockholm University, Sweden
  2. University of Tokyo, Japan
Research Article
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Cite this article as: eLife 2015;4:e09646 doi: 10.7554/eLife.09646

Abstract

Developmental potentials of cells are tightly controlled at multiple levels. The embryonic Drosophila airway tree is roughly subdivided into 2 types of cells with distinct developmental potentials: A proximally located group of multipotent adult precursor cells (P-fate) and a distally located population of more differentiated cells (D-fate). We show that the GATA-family transcription factor (TF) Grain promotes the P-fate and the POU-homeobox TF Ventral veinless (Vvl/Drifter/U-turned) stimulates the D-fate. Hedgehog and receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling cooperate with Vvl to drive the D-fate at the expense of the P-fate while negative regulators of either of these signaling pathways ensure P-fate specification. Local concentrations of Decapentaplegic/BMP, Wingless/Wnt and Hedgehog signals differentially regulate the expression of D-factors and P-factors to transform an equipotent primordial field into a concentric pattern of radially different morphogenetic potentials, which gradually gives rise to the distal-proximal organization of distinct cell types in the mature airway.

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Author details

  1. Ryo Matsuda

    Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Chie Hosono

    Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Christos Samakovlis

    Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
    For correspondence
    Christos.Samakovlis@su.se
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Kaoru Saigo

    Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Reviewing Editor

  1. K VijayRaghavan, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, India

Publication history

  1. Received: June 24, 2015
  2. Accepted: December 2, 2015
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: December 2, 2015 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: February 23, 2016 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2015, Matsuda 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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