title: Bantam is essential for Drosophila intestinal stem cell proliferation in response to Hippo signaling.
abstract: The Drosophila midgut has emerged as an attractive model system to study stem cell biology. Extensive studies have been carried out to investigate the mechanisms of how the signaling pathways integrate to regulate intestinal stem cells (ISCs), yet, whether the microRNAs are involved in ISC self-renewal and maintenance is unknown. Here we demonstrate that the bantam microRNA is expressed specifically at high levels in Drosophila midgut precursor cells (including ISCs and enteroblasts) and secretory enteroendocrine cells while at extremely low levels in enterocytes. Furthermore, overexpression of bantam microRNA results in increase of the division of the midgut precursor cells, whereas loss of bantam microRNA decreases their proliferation. The mechanical studies show that bantam microRNA is essential for the Hpo pathway induced cell-autonomous ISC self-renewal, while it is disposable for EGFR and Notch pathways mediated ISC proliferation. More interestingly, we find that bantam microRNA is not required for the Hpo pathway mediated non-cell-autonomous ISC proliferation, revealing a novel mechanism by which the Hpo signaling pathway specifies its transcriptional targets in specific tissue to exhibit its biological functions.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongling
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Jinhui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Lianxin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongbin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China. Electronic address: yunzhao@sibcb.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, PR China. Electronic address: rayzhang@sibcb.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004330:Drosophila / Q000166:cytology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D007422:Intestines / Q000166:cytology*; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000502:physiology*; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D000099317:Hippo Kinases
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D047908:Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; D035683:MicroRNAs; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; C471146:bantam microRNA, Drosophila; C499474:hpo protein, Drosophila; D000099317:Hippo Kinases
keywords: Bantam; Drosophila; Hippo pathway; Intestinal stem cell; MicroRNA