Back

Spatial patterning regulates neuron numbers in the Drosophila visual system

Malin, J.; Chen, Y.-C.; Simon, F.; Keefer, E.; Desplan, C.

2023-08-29 developmental biology
10.1101/2023.08.28.555170 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Neurons must be made in the correct proportions to communicate with the appropriate synaptic partners and form functional circuits. In the Drosophila visual system, multiple subtypes of Distal medulla (Dm) inhibitory interneurons are made in distinct, reproducible numbers--from 5 to 800 per optic lobe. These neurons are born from a crescent-shaped neuroepithelium called the Outer Proliferation Center (OPC), which can be subdivided into specific domains based on transcription factor expression. We fate mapped Dm neurons and found that more abundant neural types are born from larger neuroepithelial subdomains, while less abundant subtypes are born from smaller ones. Additionally, morphogenetic Dpp/BMP signaling provides a second layer of patterning that subdivides the neuroepithelium into smaller domains to provide more granular control of cell proportions. Apoptosis appears to play a minor role in regulating Dm neuron abundance. This work describes an underappreciated mechanism for the regulation of neuronal stoichiometry.

Matching journals

The top 4 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.