105 Oral - Neurodevelopment II/Neurobehavior II
Friday April 08, 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Developmental mechanisms regulating the formation and function of drosophila sleep-wake circuit
Authors: Adil R Wani 1; Aisha Hamid 1; Hannah Deutsch 2; Gonzalo M Chaya 1; Matthew S Kayser 2; Mubarak H Syed 1
Affiliations: 1) University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM; 2) University of Pennsylvania, PA
Keywords: d. neuronal specification; h. circadian rhythms and sleep
Molecular mechanisms regulating the formation and function of neural cell types are not fully understood. Studying the programs by which neuronal types are specified, connected to form unique functional circuits regulating discrete behaviors is an important area of neuroscience. We are investigating this long-standing question using the recently identified and conserved Drosophila sleep-wake circuit. We utilize novel lineage filtering tools to show that sleep-promoting dorsal fan-shaped body (dFB) neurons are born from late-type II neural stem cells (NSCs) that express ecdysone induced protein (E93). Using mosaic analysis, we show that majority of the dFB neurons are generated from the dorsolateral 1 (DL1) type II NSCs, and E93 is essential for the specification of these neurons. Interestingly, the knockdown of E93 in type II NSCs affects adult sleep behavior. Our data show that we have identified steroid hormone-mediated NSC-specific developmental programs that regulate the formation and function of the sleep-wake circuit.