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First published online February 18, 2004
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/dev.01014

Development 131, 1123-1134 (2004)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2004
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Upregulation of Mitimere and Nubbin acts through Cyclin E to confer self-renewing asymmetric division potential to neural precursor cells

Krishna Moorthi Bhat* and Nora Apsel

Department of Cell Biology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: Kbhat{at}cellbio.emory.edu)

Accepted 1 December 2003

In the Drosophila CNS, neuroblasts undergo self-renewing asymmetric divisions, whereas their progeny, ganglion mother cells (GMCs), divide asymmetrically to generate terminal postmitotic neurons. It is not known whether GMCs have the potential to undergo self-renewing asymmetric divisions. It is also not known how precursor cells undergo self-renewing asymmetric divisions. Here, we report that maintaining high levels of Mitimere or Nubbin, two POU proteins, in a GMC causes it to undergo self-renewing asymmetric divisions. These asymmetric divisions are due to upregulation of Cyclin E in late GMC and its unequal distribution between two daughter cells. GMCs in an embryo overexpressing Cyclin E, or in an embryo mutant for archipelago, also undergo self-renewing asymmetric divisions. Although the GMC self-renewal is independent of inscuteable and numb, the fate of the differentiating daughter is inscuteable and numb-dependent. Our results reveal that regulation of Cyclin E levels, and asymmetric distribution of Cyclin E and other determinants, confer self-renewing asymmetric division potential to precursor cells, and thus define a pathway that regulates such divisions. These results add to our understanding of maintenance and loss of pluripotential stem cell identity.

Key words: Stem cell, Asymmetric division, Mitimere, Nubbin, Cyclin E, Drosophila




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J. Cell Biol., January 28, 2008; 180(2): 267 - 272.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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