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.
Article and author information
Author details
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.
Reviewing Editor
- K VijayRaghavan, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India
Publication history
- Received: January 9, 2020
- Accepted: March 27, 2020
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 27, 2020 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: April 14, 2020 (version 2)
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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