Identification of novel regulators of stem cell self-renewal in the larval Drosophila CNS

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Berger
• Subject Area: Developmental Neurobiology
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 221270712

Drosophila larval neuroblast (NB) have intensively been used as a model system to study mechanisms that control cell division and cell fate decisions. The NBs divide asymmetrically to self-renew and to generate one differentiating daughter cell, the ganglion mother cell (GMC). A series of studies showed, that cell fate determinants Prospero, Brat and Numb segregate during asymmetric cell division to the GMC and change the transcriptional profile towards differentiation. In contrast to this not much is known on how self-renewal or stem cell identity is maintained in the NBs. To unravel new factors involved in NBs self-renewal we have undertaken a transcriptome analysis of FACS-sorted NBs via next generation mRNA sequencing. We compared these data to mRNA sequencing data of FACS-sorted neurons to enrich for genes specifically expressed in NBs. The projects of this application analyse different genes from the transcriptome data in detail to study their function in NB self-renewal and NB lineage identity determination to characterize individual NB lineages in the larval CNS.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Jürgen Knoblich