"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
Programmed cell death (PCD) of obsolete tissues is a precisely regulated biological process, and plays critical roles for normal animal development. During transition from juveniles to adults, reproductive maturation is accompanied by a significant remodeling of the central nervous system (CNS) to accommodate adult-like reasoning and behavioral changes. PCD of selective neurons is one of the remodelling processes, thereby contributing to the scupturing of the adult CNS. Despite extensive biochemical and genetic studies on PCD, the mechanisms and selectivity of neuronal PCD are poorly understood mainly due to the lack of a model system. Previous studies, by the principal investigator, on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster revealed that a group of neuropeptide-producing neurons in the fly CNS are programmed to die shortly after the onset of metamorphosis. To find molecular components of PCD of these neurons and to elucidate how they are involed in such death pathway, this project will use various genetic and histological tools available for Drosophila research. It is expected that signaling of the steroid molting hormone, ecdysone, is a key endocrine cue that triggers the PCD of the larval neurons, and TGF-beta and Dimm are likely to control such ecdysone-regulated PCD. The proposed research will provide an excellent model system to understand how developmentally controlled PCD of juvenile neurons contribute to the formation of adult CNS in insects as well as in vertebrates. This research project will also provide undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students with various levels of training associated with genetics and neurobiology.
