Live imaging of the Drosophila spermatogonial stem cell niche reveals novel mechanisms regulating germline stem cell output.

ABSTRACT: Adult stem cells modulate their output by varying between symmetric and asymmetric divisions, but have rarely been observed in living intact tissues. Germline stem cells (GSCs) in the Drosophila testis are anchored to somatic hub cells and were thought to exclusively undergo oriented asymmetric divisions, producing one stem cell that remains hub-anchored and one daughter cell displaced out of the stem cell-maintaining micro-environment (niche). We developed extended live imaging of the Drosophila testis niche, allowing us to track individual germline cells. Surprisingly, new wild-type GSCs are generated in the niche during steady-state tissue maintenance by a previously undetected event we term 'symmetric renewal', where interconnected GSC-daughter cell pairs swivel such that both cells co

SUBMITTER: Sheng XR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3143561 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature