Synchrotron-source micro-x-ray computed tomography for examining butterfly eyes.

Comparative anatomy is an important tool for investigating evolutionary relationships among species, but the lack of scalable imaging tools and stains for rapidly mapping the microscale anatomies of related species poses a major impediment to using comparative anatomy approaches for identifying evolutionary adaptations. We describe a method using synchrotron source micro-x-ray computed tomography (syn-µXCT) combined with machine learning algorithms for high-throughput imaging of Lepidoptera (i.e., butterfly and moth) eyes. Our pipeline allows for imaging at rates of ~15 min/mm3 at 600 nm3 resolution. Image contrast is generated using standard electron microscopy labeling approaches (e.g., osmium tetroxide) that unbiasedly labels all cellular membranes in a species-independent manner thus removing any barrier to imaging any species of interest. To demonstrate the power of the method, we analyzed the 3D morphologies of butterfly crystalline cones, a part of the visual system associated with acuity and sensitivity and found significant variation within six butterfly individuals. Despite this variation, a classic measure of optimization, the ratio of interommatidial angle to resolving power of ommatidia, largely agrees with early work on eye geometry across species. We show that this method can successfully be used to determine compound eye organization and crystalline cone morphology. Our novel pipeline provides for fast, scalable visualization and analysis of eye anatomies that can be applied to any arthropod species, enabling new questions about evolutionary adaptations of compound eyes and beyond.

A versatile viral toolkit for functional discovery in the nervous system.

The ability to precisely control transgene expression is essential for basic research and clinical applications. Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are non-pathogenic and can be used to drive stable expression in virtually any tissue, cell type, or species, but their limited genomic payload results in a trade-off between the transgenes that can be incorporated and the complexity of the regulatory elements controlling their expression. Resolving these competing imperatives in complex experiments inevitably results in compromises. Here, we assemble an optimized viral toolkit (VTK) that addresses these limitations and allows for efficient combinatorial targeting of cell types. Moreover, their modular design explicitly enables further refinements. We achieve this in compact vectors by integrating structural improvements of AAV vectors with innovative molecular tools. We illustrate the potential of this approach through a systematic demonstration of their utility for targeting cell types and querying their biology using a wide array of genetically encoded tools.

Primate neuronal connections are sparse in cortex as compared to mouse.

Detailing how primate and mouse neurons differ is critical for creating generalized models of how neurons process information. We reconstruct 15,748 synapses in adult Rhesus macaques and mice and ask how connectivity differs on identified cell types in layer 2/3 of primary visual cortex. Primate excitatory and inhibitory neurons receive 2-5 times fewer excitatory and inhibitory synapses than similar mouse neurons. Primate excitatory neurons have lower excitatory-to-inhibitory (E/I) ratios than mouse but similar E/I ratios in inhibitory neurons. In both species, properties of inhibitory axons such as synapse size and frequency are unchanged, and inhibitory innervation of excitatory neurons is local and specific. Using artificial recurrent neural networks (RNNs) optimized for different cognitive tasks, we find that penalizing networks for creating and maintaining synapses, as opposed to neuronal firing, reduces the number of connections per node as the number of nodes increases, similar to primate neurons compared with mice.

Evolving a 24-hr oscillator in budding yeast.

We asked how a new, complex trait evolves by selecting for diurnal oscillations in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We expressed yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) from a yeast promoter and selected for a regular alternation between low and high fluorescence over a 24-hr period. This selection produced changes in cell adhesion rather than YFP expression: clonal populations oscillated between single cells and multicellular clumps. The oscillations are not a response to environmental cues and continue for at least three cycles in a constant environment. We identified eight putative causative mutations in one clone and recreated the evolved phenotype in the ancestral strain. The mutated genes lack obvious relationships to each other, but multiple lineages change from the haploid to the diploid pattern of gene expression. We show that a novel, complex phenotype can evolve by small sets of mutations in genes whose molecular functions appear to be unrelated to each other.

p120 serine and threonine phosphorylation is controlled by multiple ligand-receptor pathways but not cadherin ligation.

p120-catenin (p120) regulates cadherin turnover and is required for cadherin stability. Extensive and dynamic phosphorylation on tyrosine, serine and threonine residues in the N-terminal regulatory domain has been postulated to regulate p120 function, possibly through modulation of the efficiency of p120/cadherin interaction. Here we have utilized novel phospho-specific monoclonal antibodies to four major p120 serine and threonine phosphorylation sites to monitor individual phosphorylation events and their consequences. Surprisingly, membrane-localization and not cadherin interaction is the main determinant in p120 serine and threonine phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. Furthermore, the phospho-status of these four residues had no obvious effect on p120's role in cadherin complex stabilization or cell-cell adhesion. Interestingly, dephosphorylation was dramatically induced by PKC activation, but PKC-independent pathways were also evident. The data suggest that p120 dephosphorylation at these sites is modulated by multiple cell surface receptors primarily through PKC-dependent pathways, but these changes do not seem to reduce p120/cadherin affinity.

p120-catenin and p190RhoGAP regulate cell-cell adhesion by coordinating antagonism between Rac and Rho.

Integration of receptor tyrosine kinase, integrin, and cadherin activities is crucial for normal cell growth, motility, and adhesion. Here, we describe roles for p120-catenin (p120) and p190RhoGAP that coordinate crosstalk between these systems and regulate cadherin function. Surprisingly, PDGFR-induced actin remodeling in NIH3T3 cells is blocked in the absence of p120, and the cells are partially transformed via constitutive activation of Rho. We have traced the mechanism to unexpected codependent roles for p120 and p190RhoGAP in regulating Rac-dependent antagonism of Rho. Receptor-induced Rac activity causes translocation of p190RhoGAP to adherens junctions (AJs), where it couples to the cadherin complex via interaction with p120. AJ formation is dependent on this p120-p190RhoGAP interaction and fails altogether if either of these proteins are compromised. We propose that Rac activation links diverse signaling systems to AJ assembly by controlling transient p190RhoGAP interactions with p120 and localized inhibition of Rho.