Competition between kinesin-1 and myosin-V defines Drosophila posterior determination

eLife

Neil Billington¹  Rong Liu¹  James R Sellers¹  Vladimir I Gelfand²  Wen Lu²  Margot Lakonishok²  Michael Glotzer³  Ashley Rich³ 

[1] Cell Biology and Physiology Center, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States;Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, United States;Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States;

关键词: kinesin;    myosin;    oskar;    Drosophila;    microtubules;    actin;    D. melanogaster;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.54216

来源: publisher

【 摘 要 】

Local accumulation of oskar (osk) mRNA in the Drosophila oocyte determines the posterior pole of the future embryo. Two major cytoskeletal components, microtubules and actin filaments, together with a microtubule motor, kinesin-1, and an actin motor, myosin-V, are essential for osk mRNA posterior localization. In this study, we use Staufen, an RNA-binding protein that colocalizes with osk mRNA, as a proxy for osk mRNA. We demonstrate that posterior localization of osk/Staufen is determined by competition between kinesin-1 and myosin-V. While kinesin-1 removes osk/Staufen from the cortex along microtubules, myosin-V anchors osk/Staufen at the cortex. Myosin-V wins over kinesin-1 at the posterior pole due to low microtubule density at this site, while kinesin-1 wins at anterior and lateral positions because they have high density of cortically-anchored microtubules. As a result, posterior determinants are removed from the anterior and lateral cortex but retained at the posterior pole. Thus, posterior determination of Drosophila oocytes is defined by kinesin-myosin competition, whose outcome is primarily determined by cortical microtubule density.

【 授权许可】

CC BY