During development of the nervous system, or neurogenesis, it is possible to trace the lineage of cells leading to adult cell types. For all cells that will become nerve cells, or neurons, a group of genes has been identified that are characteristically activated to express protein products . Several of these "neuronal precursor" genes are likely to have regulatory functions during neurogenesis. This project uses the insect Drosophila as a model system with well-known genetics to investigate one such gene. The gene called "prospero" or "pros" is believed to act as a regulatory gene by expressing a protein that binds to specific regions of molecular sequences in the nuclear DNA. Molecular techniques are used to assay the binding sites, the identification of potential target genes, and the sequence elements required for gene regulation. Clarifying how this key gene works to regulate neuronal lineage in early development of Drosophila will be an important step toward understanding the molecular processes underlying initiation and execution of neurogenesis. The results will be fundamental to further work on regulation of neuronal differentiation and process outgrowth, in the vertebrates as well as the invertebrates, and the results will have an impact beyond neuroscience to developmental biology and genetics.
