Cytokine receptor-Eb1 interaction couples cell polarity and fate during asymmetric cell division
Abstract
Asymmetric stem cell division is a critical mechanism for balancing self-renewal and differentiation. Adult stem cells often orient their mitotic spindle to place one daughter inside the niche and the other outside of it to achieve asymmetric division. It remains unknown whether and how the niche may direct division orientation. Here we discover a novel and evolutionary conserved mechanism that couples cell polarity to cell fate. We show that the cytokine receptor homolog Dome, acting downstream of the niche-derived ligand Upd, directly binds to the microtubule-binding protein Eb1 to regulate spindle orientation in Drosophila male germline stem cells (GSCs). Dome's role in spindle orientation is entirely separable from its known function in self-renewal mediated by the JAK-STAT pathway. We propose that integration of two functions (cell polarity and fate) in a single receptor is a key mechanism to ensure an asymmetric outcome following cell division.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Yukiko M Yamashita
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM07200606)
- Alan J Hunt
- Michael Mayer
- Yukiko M Yamashita
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM118308)
- Yukiko M Yamashita
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2018, Chen 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.
Metrics
-
- 2,424
- views
-
- 472
- downloads
-
- 22
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Citations by DOI
-
- 22
- citations for umbrella DOI https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33685