spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


spacer gif
     Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents    

First published online 15 March 2006
doi: 10.1242/dev.02321

Development 133, 1445-1455 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
dev.02321v1
133/8/1445    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Related articles in Development
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Garces, A.
Right arrow Articles by Thor, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Garces, A.
Right arrow Articles by Thor, S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Specification of Drosophila aCC motoneuron identity by a genetic cascade involving even-skipped, grain and zfh1

Alain Garces1 and Stefan Thor2,*

1 INSERM U 583, INM-Hopital St Eloi, 80 rue Augustin Fliche, 34091 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
2 Division of Molecular Genetics, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linkoping University, S-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden.

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: steth{at}ifm.liu.se)

Accepted 10 February 2006

During nervous system development, combinatorial codes of regulators act to specify different neuronal subclasses. However, within any given subclass, there exists a further refinement, apparent in Drosophila and C. elegans at single-cell resolution. The mechanisms that act to specify final and unique neuronal cell fates are still unclear. In the Drosophila embryo, one well-studied motoneuron subclass, the intersegmental motor nerve (ISN), consists of seven unique motoneurons. Specification of the ISN subclass is dependent upon both even-skipped (eve) and the zfh1 zinc-finger homeobox gene. We find that ISN motoneurons also express the GATA transcription factor Grain, and grn mutants display motor axon pathfinding defects. Although these three regulators are expressed by all ISN motoneurons, these genes act in an eve->grn->zfh1 genetic cascade unique to one of the ISN motoneurons, the aCC. Our results demonstrate that the specification of a unique neuron, within a given subclass, can be governed by a unique regulatory cascade of subclass determinants.

Key words: Axon pathfinding, Even-skipped, Grain, Neuronal fate specification, Combinatorial code, Drosophila


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?

Related articles in Development:

Pioneering work on cracking neuron codes

Development 2006 133: e801. [Full Text]  

Pioneering work on cracking neuron codes

Development 2006 133: e801. [Full Text]  



This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 DevelopmentHome page
S. J. Butler and G. Tear
Getting axons onto the right path: the role of transcription factors in axon guidance
Development, February 1, 2007; 134(3): 439 - 448.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2006