TY - JOUR T1 - The transcription factor Odd-paired regulates temporal identity in transit-amplifying neural progenitors via an incoherent feed-forward loop JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/576736 SP - 576736 AU - Merve Deniz Abdusselamoglu AU - Elif Eroglu AU - Thomas R. Burkard AU - Juergen A. Knoblich Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/14/576736.abstract N2 - Neural progenitors undergo temporal patterning to generate diverse neurons in a chronological order. This process is well-studied in the developing Drosophila brain and conserved in mammals. During larval stages, intermediate neural progenitors (INPs) serially express Dichaete (D), grainyhead (Grh) and eyeless (Ey/Pax6), but how the transitions are regulated is not precisely understood. Here, we developed a method to isolate transcriptomes of INPs in their distinct temporal states to identify a complete set of temporal patterning factors. Our analysis identifies odd-paired (opa), as a key regulator of temporal patterning. Temporal patterning is initiated when the SWI/SNF complex component Osa induces D and its repressor Opa at the same time but with distinct kinetics. Then, high Opa levels repress D to allow Grh transcription and progress to the next temporal state. We propose that Osa and its target genes opa and D form an incoherent feedforward loop (FFL) and a new mechanism allowing the successive expression of temporal identities. ER -