De novo apical domain formation inside the Drosophila adult midgut epithelium

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Abstract

In the adult Drosophila midgut, basal intestinal stem cells give rise to enteroblasts that integrate into the epithelium as they differentiate into enterocytes. Integrating enteroblasts must generate a new apical domain and break through the septate junctions between neighbouring enterocytes, while maintaining barrier function. We observe that enteroblasts form an apical membrane initiation site (AMIS) when they reach the septate junction between the enterocytes. Cadherin clears from the apical surface and an apical space appears between above the enteroblast. New septate junctions then form laterally with the enterocytes and the AMIS develops into an apical domain below the enterocyte septate junction. The enteroblast therefore forms a pre-assembled apical compartment before it has a free apical surface in contact with the gut lumen. Finally, the enterocyte septate junction disassembles and the enteroblast/pre-enterocyte reaches the gut lumen with a fully-formed brush border. The process of enteroblast integration resembles lumen formation in mammalian epithelial cysts, highlighting the similarities between the fly midgut and mammalian epithelia.

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All data analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file. Source Data files have been provided for Figures 1, 2, 5 and 8.

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Jia Chen

The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Daniel St Johnston

The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

For correspondence
d.stjohnston@gurdon.cam.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5582-3301

Funding

Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Principal Fellowship,207496,Wellcome Core funding,203144)

Jia Chen
Daniel St Johnston

Cancer Research UK (CRUK Core funding,A24843)

Jia Chen
Daniel St Johnston

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

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.