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Hedgehog does the two-step

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 11, page 733 (2010)Cite this article

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HH signalling occurs when HH binds to and inactivates the Patched (PTC) receptor. This results in disinhibition of the transmembrane protein Smoothened (SMO) and ultimately triggers the transcription of several HH target genes, including ptc. In D. melanogaster larvae, HH is produced in the posterior compartment of the antennal disc (from which the antenna and maxillary palp develop), whereas PTC staining was only visible in the anterior compartment. This suggests that HH diffusion across the compartment border induces ptc expression in the anterior compartment.

The differential expression of HH and PTC was maintained in the antenna and maxillary palp in pupae, such that PTC levels are high in some ORN classes but low in others. When the authors inactivated HH in the antennal disc after the differential PTC expression had been established, high-PTC classes showed much more axon mistargeting than low-PTC classes. The targeting defects in high-PTC classes could be rescued by direct (that is, without HH signalling) overexpression of peripheral PTC, indicating that peripheral HH signalling maintains high PTC expression in these classes and that this is required for their axon targeting.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Chou, Y.-H. et al. Patterning axon targeting of olfactory receptor neurons by coupled hedgehog signaling at two distinct steps. Cell 142, 954–966 (2010)

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  1. Leonie Welberg
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Welberg, L. Hedgehog does the two-step. Nat Rev Neurosci 11, 733 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2940

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