Marianes Alexis, Spradling Allan C
Department of Embryology , Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Carnegie Institution for Science , Baltimore , United States.
Elife. 2013 Aug 27;2:e00886. doi: 10.7554/eLife.00886.
The Drosophila midgut is maintained throughout its length by superficially similar, multipotent intestinal stem cells that generate new enterocytes and enteroendocrine cells in response to tissue requirements. We found that the midgut shows striking regional differentiation along its anterior-posterior axis. At least ten distinct subregions differ in cell morphology, physiology and the expression of hundreds of genes with likely tissue functions. Stem cells also vary regionally in behavior and gene expression, suggesting that they contribute to midgut sub-specialization. Clonal analyses showed that stem cells generate progeny located outside their own subregion at only one of six borders tested, suggesting that midgut subregions resemble cellular compartments involved in tissue development. Tumors generated by disrupting Notch signaling arose preferentially in three subregions and tumor cells also appeared to respect regional borders. Thus, apparently similar intestinal stem cells differ regionally in cell production, gene expression and in the ability to spawn tumors. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00886.001.
果蝇中肠在其全长范围内由表面相似的多能肠干细胞维持,这些干细胞根据组织需求产生新的肠上皮细胞和肠内分泌细胞。我们发现,中肠沿其前后轴呈现出显著的区域分化。至少有十个不同的亚区域在细胞形态、生理学以及数百个可能具有组织功能的基因表达方面存在差异。干细胞在行为和基因表达上也存在区域差异,这表明它们促成了中肠的亚专业化。克隆分析表明,在六个测试边界中,只有一个边界处的干细胞产生的子代位于其自身亚区域之外,这表明中肠亚区域类似于参与组织发育的细胞区室。通过破坏Notch信号产生的肿瘤优先出现在三个亚区域,并且肿瘤细胞似乎也遵循区域边界。因此,表面上相似的肠干细胞在细胞产生、基因表达以及产生肿瘤的能力方面存在区域差异。DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00886.001 。