Transcriptional dynamics of microRNAs and their targets during Drosophila neurogenesis.

ABSTRACTDuring Drosophila melanogaster embryogenesis, tight regulation of gene expression in time and space is required for the orderly emergence of specific cell types. While the general importance of microRNAs in regulating eukaryotic gene expression has been well-established, their role in early neurogenesis remains to be addressed. In this survey, we investigate the transcriptional dynamics of microRNAs and their target transcripts during neurogenesis of Drosophila melanogaster. To this end, we use the recently developed DIV-MARIS protocol, a method for enriching specific cell types from the Drosophila embryo in vivo, to sequence cell type-specific transcriptomes. We generate dedicated small and total RNA-seq libraries for neuroblasts, neurons and glia cells at early (6–8 h after egg laying (AEL)) and late (18–22 h AEL) stage. This allows us to directly compare these transcriptomes and investigate the potential functional roles of individual microRNAs with spatiotemporal resolution genome-wide, which ...