Morphological and functional convergence of visual projection neurons from diverse neurogenic origins in Drosophila

Rana Naja El-Danaf (), Katarina Kapuralin, Raghuvanshi Rajesh, Félix Simon, Nizar Drou, Filipe Pinto-Teixeira, Mehmet Neset Özel and Claude Desplan ()
Additional contact information
Rana Naja El-Danaf: New York University Abu Dhabi
Katarina Kapuralin: New York University Abu Dhabi
Raghuvanshi Rajesh: New York University Abu Dhabi
Félix Simon: New York University
Nizar Drou: New York University Abu Dhabi
Filipe Pinto-Teixeira: New York University Abu Dhabi
Mehmet Neset Özel: New York University
Claude Desplan: New York University Abu Dhabi

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract The Drosophila visual system is a powerful model to study the development of neural circuits. Lobula columnar neurons-LCNs are visual output neurons that encode visual features relevant to natural behavior. There are ~20 classes of LCNs forming non-overlapping synaptic optic glomeruli in the brain. To address their origin, we used single-cell mRNA sequencing to define the transcriptome of LCN subtypes and identified lines that are expressed throughout their development. We show that LCNs originate from stem cells in four distinct brain regions exhibiting different modes of neurogenesis, including the ventral and dorsal tips of the outer proliferation center, the ventral superficial inner proliferation center and the central brain. We show that this convergence of similar neurons illustrates the complexity of generating neuronal diversity, and likely reflects the evolutionary origin of each subtype that detects a specific visual feature and might influence behaviors specific to each species.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56059-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56059-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56059-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().