TY - JOUR TI - Sustained expression of unc-4 homeobox gene and unc-37/Groucho in postmitotic neurons specifies the spatial organization of the cholinergic synapses in C. elegans AU - Kurashina, Mizuki AU - Wang, Jane AU - Lin, Jeffrey AU - Lee, Kathy Kyungeun AU - Johal, Arpun AU - Mizumoto, Kota A2 - Shen, Kang A2 - VijayRaghavan, K VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/08/13 SP - e66011 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e66011 DO - 10.7554/eLife.66011 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66011 AB - Neuronal cell fate determinants establish the identities of neurons by controlling gene expression to regulate neuronal morphology and synaptic connectivity. However, it is not understood if neuronal cell fate determinants have postmitotic functions in synapse pattern formation. Here we identify a novel role for UNC-4 homeobox protein and its corepressor UNC-37/Groucho, in tiled synaptic patterning of the cholinergic motor neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. We show that unc-4 is not required during neurogenesis but is required in the postmitotic neurons for proper synapse patterning. In contrast, unc-37 is required in both developing and postmitotic neurons. The synaptic tiling defects of unc-4 mutants are suppressed by bar-1/β-catenin mutation, which positively regulates the expression of ceh-12/HB9. Ectopic ceh-12 expression partly underlies the synaptic tiling defects of unc-4 and unc-37 mutants. Our results reveal a novel postmitotic role of neuronal cell fate determinants in synapse pattern formation through inhibiting the canonical Wnt signaling pathway. KW - homeobox KW - cell fate determinants KW - synapse KW - wnt KW - pattern formation JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -