PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Scott Barish
AU  - Sarah Nuss
AU  - Ilya Strunilin
AU  - Suyang Bao
AU  - Sayan Mukherjee
AU  - Corbin Jones
AU  - Pelin C. Volkan
TI  - Combinations of DIPs and Dprs control organization of olfactory receptor neuron terminals in Drosophila
AID  - 10.1101/316109
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 316109
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/07/316109.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/07/316109.full
AB  - In Drosophila, 50 classes of olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) connect to 50 class-specific and uniquely positioned glomeruli in the antennal lobe. Despite the identification of cell surface receptors regulating axon guidance, how ORN axons sort to form 50 stereotypical glomeruli remains unclear. Here we show that the heterophilic cell adhesion proteins, DIPs and Dprs, are expressed in ORNs during glomerular formation. Each ORN class expresses a unique combination of DIPs/dprs, with neurons of the same class expressing interacting partners, suggesting a role in class-specific self-adhesion ORN axons. Analysis of DIP/Dpr expression revealed that ORNS that target neighboring glomeruli have different combinations, and ORNs with very similar DIP/Dpr combinations can project to distant glomeruli in the antennal lobe. Perturbations of DIP/dpr gene function result in local projection defects of ORN axons and glomerular positioning, without altering correct matching of ORNs with their target neurons. Our results suggest that context-dependent differential adhesion through DIP/Dpr combinations regulate self-adhesion and sort ORN axons into uniquely positioned glomeruli.