Genome published Ishrat Maliha Islam's 1st Authored Paper
Please join us in congratulating Ishrat Maliha Islam, (PhD Student, Erclik Lab) on her first-authored paper Identification of enhancers that drive the spatially restricted expression of Vsx1 and Rx in the outer proliferation center of the developing Drosophila optic lobe, published by Genome.
Combinatorial spatial and temporal patterning of stem cells is a powerful mechanism for the generation of neural diversity in insect and vertebrate nervous systems. In the developing Drosophila visual system, neural stem cells are spatially patterned by the mutually exclusive expression of three transcription factors: Vsx1, Optix and Rx. These spatial factors act together with a temporal cascade of genes to specify the greater than 80 cell types that are generated. Here, we identify the enhancers that are sufficient to drive the spatially restricted expression of the Vsx1 and Rx genes. We show that removal of the identified Vsx1 spatial enhancer in the classic Muddled inversion mutant leads to the loss of Vsx1 expression. Furthermore, analysis of the evolutionarily conserved sequences within these enhancers suggests that direct repression by Optix restricts the spatial expression of both Vsx1 and Rx. It is anticipated that the genes and mechanisms identified here may also play an evolutionarily conserved role in the development of the vertebrate retina.
