Project description:This project’s aim was to compare the transcriptional profiles of olfactory sensory neurons in Drosophila melanogaster in order to identify novel genes that specify neuron-specific functions/phenotypes or may otherwise be involved in the development of the olfactory system. The isolation of sufficient numbers of intact olfactory sensory neurons (OSN) from the antenna of Drosophila melanogaster has so far limited single-cell transcriptomic approaches being applied to the adult fly antenna. Targeted DamID (TaDa) provides an alternative approach for profiling transcriptional activity in a cell-specific manor that bypasses the need for isolating OSN. Using the Gal4/UAS system, we applied TaDa to seven OSN populations and compared differences in Pol II occupancy for genes across these datasets.
Project description:Paper abstract: The transcription factors Abrupt (Ab) and Knot (Kn) act as selectors of distinct dendritic arbor morphologies in two classes of Drosophila sensory neurons, termed class I and class IV, respectively. We performed binding-site mapping and transcriptional profiling of isolated these neurons. Their profiles were similarly enriched in cell-type-specific enhancers of genes implicated in neural development. We identified a total of 429 target genes, of which 56 were common to Ab and Kn; these targets included genes necessary to shape dendritic arbors in either or both of the two sensory subtypes. Furthermore, a common target gene, encoding the cell adhesion molecule Ten-m, was expressed more strongly in class I than IV, and this differential was critical to the class-selective directional control of dendritic branch sprouting or extension. Our analyses illustrate how differentiating neurons employ distinct and shared repertoires of gene expression to produce class-selective morphological traits.
