Endocytosis is required for Toll signaling and shaping of the Dorsal/NF-κB morphogen gradient during Drosophila embryogenesis

Edited by Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved September 8, 2010 (received for review June 25, 2010)
October 4, 2010
107 (42) 18028-18033

Abstract

Dorsoventral cell fate in the Drosophila embryo is specified by activation of the Toll receptor, leading to a ventral-to-dorsal gradient across nuclei of the NF-κB transcription factor Dorsal. Toll receptor has been investigated genetically, molecularly, and immunohistologically, but much less is known about its dynamics in living embryos. Using live imaging of fluorescent protein chimeras, we find that Toll is recruited from the plasma membrane to Rab5+ early endosomes. The distribution of a constitutively active form of Toll, Toll10b, is shifted from the plasma membrane to early endosomes. Inhibition of endocytosis on the ventral side of the embryo attenuates Toll signaling ventrally and causes Dorsal to accumulate on the dorsal side of the embryo, essentially inverting the dorsal/ventral axis. Conversely, enhancing endocytosis laterally greatly potentiates Toll signaling locally, altering the shape of the Dorsal gradient. Photoactivation and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching studies reveal that Toll exhibits extremely limited lateral diffusion within the plasma membrane, whereas Toll is highly compartmentalized in endosomes. When endocytosis is blocked ventrally, creating an ectopic dorsal signaling center, Toll is preferentially endocytosed at the ectopic signaling center. We propose that Toll signals from an endocytic compartment rather than the plasma membrane. Our studies reveal that endocytosis plays a pivotal role in the spatial regulation of Toll receptor activation and signaling and in the correct shaping of the nuclear Dorsal concentration gradient.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Novo Nordisk Fund, Lundbeck Fund, and Novo Scholarship Fund for funding and the Carlsberg Fund for fellowship support.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published in

The cover image for PNAS Vol.107; No.42
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Vol. 107 | No. 42
October 19, 2010
PubMed: 20921412

Classifications

Submission history

Published online: October 4, 2010
Published in issue: October 19, 2010

Keywords

  1. Rab5
  2. Toll-like receptor
  3. pattern formation

Acknowledgments

We thank the Novo Nordisk Fund, Lundbeck Fund, and Novo Scholarship Fund for funding and the Carlsberg Fund for fellowship support.

Notes

*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.

Authors

Affiliations

Viktor K. Lund
Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark; and
Yvonne DeLotto
Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark; and
Robert DeLotto1 [email protected]
Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark; and
Department of Biological Sciences, Life Sciences Center, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102

Notes

1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected].
Author contributions: V.K.L. and R.D. designed research; V.K.L., Y.D., and R.D. performed research; R.D. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; V.K.L., Y.D., and R.D. analyzed data; and V.K.L. and R.D. wrote the paper.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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    Endocytosis is required for Toll signaling and shaping of the Dorsal/NF-κB morphogen gradient during Drosophila embryogenesis
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    • Vol. 107
    • No. 42
    • pp. 17853-18231

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