Journal
GENES & DEVELOPMENT
Volume 23, Issue 9, Pages 1052-1062Publisher
COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB PRESS, PUBLICATIONS DEPT
DOI: 10.1101/gad.520509
Keywords
Drosophila; motor axon guidance; Sidestep; Beaten path; substrate pathway; in vivo imaging; time-lapse movie
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [AB116/3-1, AB116/4-1]
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During development of the Drosophila nervous system, migrating motor axons contact and interact with different cell types before reaching their peripheral muscle fields. The axonal attractant Sidestep (Side) is expressed in most of these intermediate targets. Here, we show that motor axons recognize and follow Side-expressing cell surfaces from the ventral nerve cord to their target region. Contact of motor axons with Side-expressing cells induces the down-regulation of Side. In the absence of Side, the interaction with intermediate targets is lost. Misexpression of Side in side mutants strongly attracts motor axons to ectopic sites. We provide evidence that, on motor axons, Beaten path Ia (Beat) functions as a receptor or part of a receptor complex for Side. In beat mutants, motor axons no longer recognize Side-expressing cell surfaces. Furthermore, Beat interacts with Side both genetically and biochemically. These results suggest that the tracing of Side-labeled cell surfaces by Beat-expressing growth cones is a major principle of motor axon guidance in Drosophila.
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