摘要：The
Drosophila testis provides an exemplary model for analyzing the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that regulate the fate of stem cell in vivo. Using this model, we show that the
Drosophila αTub67C gene (full name
αTubulin at 67C), which encodes α4-Tubulin (a type of α-Tubulin), plays a new role in controlling the fate of male germline stem cells (GSC). In this study, we have found that
Drosophila α4-Tubulin is required intrinsically and extrinsically for GSCs maintenance. Results from green fluorescent protein (GFP)-transgene reporter assays show that the gene
αTub67C is not required for Dpp/Gbb signaling silencing of
bam expression, suggesting that
αTub67C functions downstream of or parallel to
bam, and is independent of Gbb/Dpp-
bam signaling pathway. Furthermore, overexpression of
αTub67C fails to obviously increase the number of GSC/Gonialblast (GB). Given that the
α-tubulin genes are evolutionarily conserved from yeast to human, which triggers us to study the more roles of the gene
α-tubulin in other animals in the future.
