Journal article
The Hippo Pathway Regulates Neuroblasts and Brain Size in Drosophila melanogaster
CLC Poon, KA Mitchell, S Kondo, LY Cheng, KF Harvey
Current Biology | CELL PRESS | Published : 2016
Abstract
A key question in developmental neurobiology is how neural stem cells regulate their proliferative potential and cellular diversity and thus specify the overall size of the brain. Drosophila melanogaster neural stem cells (neuroblasts) are known to regulate their ability to self-renew by asymmetric cell division and produce different types of neurons and glia through sequential expression of temporal transcription factors [1]. Here, we show that the conserved Hippo pathway, a key regulator of epithelial organ size [2-4], restricts neuroblast proliferative potential and neuronal cell number to regulate brain size. The inhibition of Hippo pathway activity via depletion of the core kinases Tao-..
View full abstractGrants
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Erika Bach, Andrea Brand, Alex Gould, Iswar Hariharan, Bruce Hay, Leonie Quinn, Helena Richardson, the Vienna Drosophila Resource Center, the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center, the Australian Drosophila Biomedical Research Support Facility (http://www.ozdros.com), and the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank for fly stocks and antibodies. We thank Nic Tapon and leva Gailite for discussing results prior to publication. K.F.H. is a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow. This research was supported by a Project Grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.