Growing together

Talk about codependence. In the developing Drosophila nerve cord, neurons and glia cannot survive without each other. Kill a neuron, and its supporting glia will die, and vice versa. New research illuminates one of the molecular mechanisms behind this relationship. Neurons produce a protein that keeps glial cells alive, and in the process help shape the growing nervous system.

Alicia Hidalgo (Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK) and colleagues determined the effects of the protein Vein on survival of glial cells in the developing ventral nerve cord of Drosophila. The protein is made in the pioneer neurons that lay down the scaffolding for the nerve cord. Blocking Vein production or blocking its receptors kills the glia near the pioneer neurons, the authors found. They also showed that Vein acts by activating the Ras/MAP-kinase pathway...