Jérôme Bohère, Alexandra Mancheno-Ferris, Sandy Al Hayek, Jennifer Zanet, Philippe Valenti, Kohsuke Akino, Yuya Yamabe, Sachi Inagaki, Hélène Chanut-Delalande, Serge Plaza, Yuji Kageyama, Dani Osman, Cédric Polesello, François Payre
To compensate for accumulating damages and cell death, adult homeostasis (e.g., body fluids and secretion) requires organ regeneration, operated by long-lived stem cells. How stem cells can survive throughout the animal life remains poorly understood. Here we show that the transcription factor Shavenbaby (Svb, OvoL in vertebrates) is expressed in renal/nephric stem cells (RNSCs) of Drosophila and required for their maintenance during adulthood. As recently shown in embryos, Svb function in adult RNSCs further needs a post-translational processing mediated by the Polished rice (Pri) smORF peptides and impairing Svb function leads to RNSC apoptosis...
November 30, 2018: Nature Communications