TY - JOUR
T1 - RNAi-based screens uncover a potential new role for the orphan neuropeptide receptor Moody in Drosophila female germline stem cell maintenance
AU - Ma, Tianlu
AU - Matsuoka, Shinya
AU - Drummond-Barbosa, Daniela
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01 GM069875 (D.D.-B) and R01 GM125121 (D.D.-B.). T.M. was supported by NIH training grant T32 CA009110. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. T.M. and D.D.-B. designed experiments, analyzed and interpreted data, and wrote the manuscript. The initial dissection-based screen was performed by S.M.; T.M. performed subsequent analyses of moody and all other experiments. We thank Metabel Markwei for her technical assistance with egg count experiments shown in S3 Fig. We are grateful to the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank for antibodies (National Institutes of Health [NIH] N01HD073263-000), and to the Bloomington Stock Center (NIH P400D018537), Vienna Drosophila Stock Center, Mark Wu, Erika Matunis, and Fumika Hamada for Drosophila stocks. We thank Lesley N. Weaver and Rodrigo Dutra Nunes for critical reading of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Ma et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Reproduction is highly sensitive to changes in physiology and the external environment. Neuropeptides are evolutionarily conserved signaling molecules that regulate multiple physiological processes. However, the potential reproductive roles of many neuropeptide signaling pathways remain underexplored. Here, we describe the results of RNAi-based screens in Drosophila melanogaster to identify neuropeptides/neuropeptide receptors with potential roles in oogenesis. The screen read-outs were either the number of eggs laid per female per day over time or fluorescence microscopy analysis of dissected ovaries. We found that the orphan neuropeptide receptor encoded by moody (homologous to mammalian melatonin receptors) is likely required in somatic cells for normal egg production and proper germline stem cell maintenance. However, the egg laying screens had low signal-to-noise ratio and did not lead to the identification of additional candidates. Thus, although egg count assays might be useful for large-scale screens to identify oogenesis regulators that result in dramatic changes in oogenesis, more labor-intensive microscopy-based screen are better applicable for identifying new physiological regulators of oogenesis with more subtle phenotypes.
AB - Reproduction is highly sensitive to changes in physiology and the external environment. Neuropeptides are evolutionarily conserved signaling molecules that regulate multiple physiological processes. However, the potential reproductive roles of many neuropeptide signaling pathways remain underexplored. Here, we describe the results of RNAi-based screens in Drosophila melanogaster to identify neuropeptides/neuropeptide receptors with potential roles in oogenesis. The screen read-outs were either the number of eggs laid per female per day over time or fluorescence microscopy analysis of dissected ovaries. We found that the orphan neuropeptide receptor encoded by moody (homologous to mammalian melatonin receptors) is likely required in somatic cells for normal egg production and proper germline stem cell maintenance. However, the egg laying screens had low signal-to-noise ratio and did not lead to the identification of additional candidates. Thus, although egg count assays might be useful for large-scale screens to identify oogenesis regulators that result in dramatic changes in oogenesis, more labor-intensive microscopy-based screen are better applicable for identifying new physiological regulators of oogenesis with more subtle phenotypes.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0243756
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0243756
M3 - Article
C2 - 33307547
AN - SCOPUS:85097761284
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 12 December
M1 - e0243756
ER -