JAK/STAT signaling regulates tissue outgrowth and male germline stem cell fate in Drosophila

Abstract

In multicellular organisms, biological activities are regulated by cell signaling. The various signal transduction pathways regulate cell fate, proliferation, migration, and polarity. Miscoordination of the communicative signals will lead to disasters like cancer and other fatal diseases. The JAK/STAT signal transduction pathway is one of the pathways, which was first identified in vertebrates and is highly conserved throughout evolution. Studying the JAK/STAT signal transduction pathway in Drosophila provides an excellent opportunity to understand the molecular mechanism of the cell regulation during development and tumor formation. In this review, we discuss the general overview of JAK/STAT signaling in Drosophila with respect to its functions in the eye development and stem cell fate determination.

Repression of Abd-B by Polycomb is critical for cell identity maintenance in adult Drosophila testis

“…1d). Hub cells can secret signal ligands, including Upd, Hh and Dpp/Gbb to support the self-renewal and undifferentiated states of CySCs and GSCs 5–13 . In addition, CySCs not only receive the signals from hub cells, but also serve as an important part of the niche for GSCs to ensure their proper proliferation and differentiation via several signaling pathways, such as BMP and EGFR pathways 4, 11, 14–16 .

Figure 1Overexpressing Abd-B in CySCs leads to a severe dysfunction in the adult testis.

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Drosophila glypicans Dally and Dally-like are essential regulators for JAK/STAT signaling and Unpaired distribution in eye development

“…Three genes encode for cytokine-like ligands, unpaired ( upd ), upd2 and upd3 (Agaisse et al, 2003; Gilbert et al, 2005; Harrison et al, 1998; Hombria et al, 2005). This low-redundancy pathway is involved in multiple biological events including immune response, stem cell maintenance, and eye development (Ekas et al, 2006; Jiang et al, 2009; Liu et al, 2010; Singh et al, 2005; Tsai et al, 2007). Although the function of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway is largely characterized, less is known about the mechanisms controlling the activities of JAK/STAT signaling components.…”

Competitiveness for the niche and mutual dependence of the germline and somatic stem cells in the Drosophila testis are regulated by the JAK/STAT signaling

“…JAK/STAT signaling is involved in many developmental processes, including segmentation in embryogenesis, eye morphogenesis, hematopoiesis; stem cell maintenance and dedifferentiation of germline stem cells (Hou et al, 2002; Singh et al, 2005; Arbouzova and Zeidler, 2006; Singh et al, 2007; López-Onieva et al 2008; Cronin et al, 2009; Jiang et al, 2009; Sheng et al, 2009). Several other signaling pathways or molecules are also involved in the process of self-renewal or differentiation of GSCs and CPCs in Drosophila testis (Schulz et al, 2004; Sarkar et al, 2007; Kiger et al, 2000; Tran et al, 2000; Shivdasani and Ingham, 2003; Bunt and Hime, 2004; Kawase et al, 2004; Singh et al, 2005, 2006). However, the regulation of CPCs and the interaction between CPCs and GSCs to coordinate their self-renewal or differentiation are processes that are not clearly understood.…”