A low affinity cis-regulatory BMP response element restricts target gene activation to subsets of Drosophila neurons
- University of California San, Diego, United States
- University of British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
Retrograde BMP signaling and canonical pMad/Medea-mediated transcription regulates diverse target genes across subsets of Drosophila efferent neurons, to differentiate neuropeptidergic neurons and promote motor neuron terminal maturation. How a common BMP signal regulates diverse target genes across neuronal subsets remains largely unresolved, although available evidence implicates subset-specific transcription factor codes rather than differences in BMP signaling. Here, we examine the cis-regulatory mechanisms restricting BMP-induced FMRFa neuropeptide expression to Tv4 neurons. We find that pMad/Medea bind at an atypical, low affinity motif in the FMRFa enhancer. Converting this motif to high affinity caused ectopic enhancer activity and eliminated Tv4 neuron expression. In silico searches identified additional motif instances functional in other efferent neurons, implicating broader functions for this motif in BMP-dependent enhancer activity. Thus, differential interpretation of a common BMP signal, conferred by low affinity pMad/Medea binding motifs, can contribute to the specification of BMP target genes in efferent neuron subsets.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-98011)
- Douglas W Allan
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-130517)
- Douglas W Allan
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Oliver Hobert, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, United States
Version history
- Received: June 3, 2020
- Accepted: October 29, 2020
- Accepted Manuscript published: October 30, 2020 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: November 16, 2020 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2020, Berndt 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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A low affinity cis-regulatory BMP response element restricts target gene activation to subsets of Drosophila neurons
eLife 9:e59650.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.59650
Further reading
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Probing memory of a complex visual image within a few hundred milliseconds after its disappearance reveals significantly greater fidelity of recall than if the probe is delayed by as little as a second. Classically interpreted, the former taps into a detailed but rapidly decaying visual sensory or ‘iconic’ memory (IM), while the latter relies on capacity-limited but comparatively stable visual working memory (VWM). While iconic decay and VWM capacity have been extensively studied independently, currently no single framework quantitatively accounts for the dynamics of memory fidelity over these time scales. Here, we extend a stationary neural population model of VWM with a temporal dimension, incorporating rapid sensory-driven accumulation of activity encoding each visual feature in memory, and a slower accumulation of internal error that causes memorized features to randomly drift over time. Instead of facilitating read-out from an independent sensory store, an early cue benefits recall by lifting the effective limit on VWM signal strength imposed when multiple items compete for representation, allowing memory for the cued item to be supplemented with information from the decaying sensory trace. Empirical measurements of human recall dynamics validate these predictions while excluding alternative model architectures. A key conclusion is that differences in capacity classically thought to distinguish IM and VWM are in fact contingent upon a single resource-limited WM store.
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Our ability to recall details from a remembered image depends on a single mechanism that is engaged from the very moment the image disappears from view.
