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Asymmetric Prospero localization is required to generate mixed neuronal/glial lineages in the Drosophila CNS

HHMI, Institute of Neuroscience, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA

*Author for correspondence (e-mail: cdoe{at}uoneuro.uoregon.edu)

Accepted July 27, 2001

In many organisms, single neural stem cells can generate both neurons and glia. How are these different cell types produced from a common precursor? In Drosophila, glial cells missing (gcm) is necessary and sufficient to induce glial development in the CNS. gcm mRNA has been reported to be asymmetrically localized to daughter cells during precursor cell division, allowing the daughter cell to produce glia while precursor cell generates neurons. We show that (1) gcm mRNA is uniformly distributed during precursor cell divisions; (2) the Prospero transcription factor is asymmetrically localized into the glial-producing daughter cell; (3) Prospero is required to upregulate gcm expression and induce glial development; and (4) mislocalization of Prospero to the precursor cell leads to ectopic gcm expression and the production of extra glia. We propose a novel model for the separation of glia and neuron fates in mixed lineages in which the asymmetric localization of Prospero results in upregulation of gcm expression and initiation of glial development in only precursor daughter cells.

Key words: Prospero, Drosophila, Glia, gcm, CNS

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