Unc-4 acts to promote neuronal identity and development of the take-off circuit in the Drosophila CNS
- Washington University School of Medicine, United States
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
Abstract
The Drosophila ventral nerve cord (VNC) is composed of thousands of neurons born from a set of individually identifiable stem cells. The VNC harbors neuronal circuits required to execute key behaviors, such as flying and walking. Leveraging the lineage-based functional organization of the VNC, we investigated the developmental and molecular basis of behavior by focusing on lineage-specific functions of the homeodomain transcription factor, Unc-4. We found that Unc-4 functions in lineage 11A to promote cholinergic neurotransmitter identity and suppress the GABA fate. In lineage 7B, Unc-4 promotes proper neuronal projections to the leg neuropil and a specific flight-related take-off behavior. We also uncovered that Unc-4 acts peripherally to promote proprioceptive sensory organ development and the execution of specific leg-related behaviors. Through time-dependent conditional knock-out of Unc-4, we found that its function is required during development, but not in the adult, to regulate the above events.
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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files
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Funding
NIH Office of the Director (NS083086)
- James B Skeath
HHMI
- James W Truman
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Lacin 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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Unc-4 acts to promote neuronal identity and development of the take-off circuit in the Drosophila CNS
eLife 9:e55007.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55007
