Nuclear receptor NR4A is required for patterning at the ends of the planarian anterior-posterior axis
Name
elife-42015-v2.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
19.66 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6a463df27e16dab8f3633be55f9b87e2
Author(s)
Li, Dayan
McMann, Conor L.
Reddien, Peter
Date Issued
April 2019
Journal
eLife
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Citation
Li, Dayan J. et al. “Nuclear receptor NR4A is required for patterning at the ends of the planarian anterior-posterior axis.” eLife 8 (2019): e42015 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Positional information is fundamental to animal regeneration and tissue turnover. In planarians, muscle cells express signaling molecules to promote positional identity. At the ends of the anterior-posterior (AP) axis, positional identity is determined by anterior and posterior poles, which are putative organizers. We identified a gene, nr4A, that is required for anterior- and posterior-pole localization to axis extremes. nr4A encodes a nuclear receptor expressed predominantly in planarian muscle, including strongly at AP-axis ends and the poles. nr4A RNAi causes patterning gene expression domains to retract from head and tail tips, and ectopic anterior and posterior anatomy (e.g., eyes) to iteratively appear more internally. Our study reveals a novel patterning phenotype, in which pattern-organizing cells (poles) shift from their normal locations (axis extremes), triggering abnormal tissue pattern that fails to reach equilibrium. We propose that nr4A promotes pattern at planarian AP axis ends through restriction of patterning gene expression domains.
MIT Department
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.7554/ELIFE.42015
