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Glia instruct developmental neuronal remodeling through TGF-β signaling

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 821–823 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

We found that glia secrete myoglianin, a TGF-β ligand, to instruct developmental neural remodeling in Drosophila. Glial myoglianin upregulated neuronal expression of an ecdysone nuclear receptor that triggered neurite remodeling following the late-larval ecdysone peak. Thus glia orchestrate developmental neural remodeling not only by engulfment of unwanted neurites but also by enabling neuron remodeling.

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Figure 1: Expression of myo transcripts in the larval brain.
Figure 2: Effect of glial silencing of myo on mushroom body remodeling.
Figure 3: Effect of myo loss of function on mushroom body remodeling.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Nakanishi, C. Hama, K. Ito, M.R. Freeman, the Bloomington Stock Center, the Vienna Drosophila RNAi Center, the Exelixis stock collection at Harvard Medical School and the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank for fly stocks and antibodies, M.A. Logan and C.-F. Kao for critical reading of the manuscript and members of the Lee laboratory for fruitful discussion. This work was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NS42049 and MH83607 to T.L.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

    Takeshi Awasaki, Yaling Huang & Tzumin Lee

  2. Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia, USA

    Takeshi Awasaki, Yaling Huang & Tzumin Lee

  3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Michael B O'Connor

Authors
  1. Takeshi Awasaki
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  2. Yaling Huang
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  3. Michael B O'Connor
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  4. Tzumin Lee
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Contributions

T.A. designed the study, conducted the experimental work, interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript. Y.H. and M.B.O. designed and established new transgenic lines. T.L. supervised the project and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Takeshi Awasaki or Tzumin Lee.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–13, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 878 kb)

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Awasaki, T., Huang, Y., O'Connor, M. et al. Glia instruct developmental neuronal remodeling through TGF-β signaling. Nat Neurosci 14, 821–823 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2833

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