Mapping peptidergic cells in Drosophila: Where DIMM fits in
PLoS ONE. 2008-03-26; 3(3): e1896
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001896
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1. PLoS One. 2008 Mar 26;3(3):e1896. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001896.
Mapping peptidergic cells in Drosophila: where DIMM fits in.
Park D(1), Veenstra JA, Park JH, Taghert PH.
Author information:
(1)Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of
Medicine, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
The bHLH transcription factor DIMMED has been associated with the differentiation
of peptidergic cells in Drosophila. However, whether all Drosophila peptidergic
cells express DIMM, and the extent to which all DIMM cells are peptidergic, have
not been determined. To address these issues, we have mapped DIMM expression in
the central nervous system (CNS) and periphery in the late larval stage
Drosophila. At 100 hr after egg-laying, DIMM immunosignals are largely congruent
with a dimm-promoter reporter (c929-GAL4) and they present a stereotyped pattern
of 306 CNS cells and 52 peripheral cells. We assigned positional values for all
DIMM CNS cells with respect to reference gene expression patterns, or to patterns
of secondary neuroblast lineages. We could assign provisional peptide identities
to 68% of DIMM-expressing CNS cells (207/306) and to 73% of DIMM-expressing
peripheral cells (38/52) using a panel of 24 markers for Drosophila neuropeptide
genes. Furthermore, we found that DIMM co-expression was a prevalent feature
within single neuropeptide marker expression patterns. Of the 24 CNS neuropeptide
gene patterns we studied, six patterns are >90% DIMM-positive, while 16 of 22
patterns are >40% DIMM-positive. Thus most or all DIMM cells in Drosophila appear
to be peptidergic, and many but not all peptidergic cells express DIMM. The
co-incidence of DIMM-expression among peptidergic cells is best explained by a
hypothesis that DIMM promotes a specific neurosecretory phenotype we term LEAP.
LEAP denotes Large cells that display Episodic release of Amidated Peptides.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001896
PMCID: PMC2266995
PMID: 18365028 [Indexed for MEDLINE]