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Complete muscle denervation triggers compensatory sprouting of a bystander tonic motor neuron in <i>Drosophila</i> larvae.

Overview

Authors: Lizzy Olsen1,2,3, Parinita Mitchelle Mandhyan1,2, Komal Kaur1,2, Sara Arredondo2, Ankura Sitaula1,2, Aref Zarin2,3
ORCID iDs: Aref Zarin
  1. Biology Graduate Program, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
  2. Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
  3. Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
Institutions: Texas A&M University (United States)
Journal: iScience, volume 29, issue 8, article 116099
Dates: received 30 July 2025; accepted 8 May 2026; published online 27 July 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099 · PMID 42564939 · PMCID PMC13446351 · OpenAlex W7171359940
Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: code on request
Categories: drosophila (organism), cellular / molecular (subfield)
Methods: Statistics, Evoked potentials, fMRI & imaging, Single-unit activity, calcium imaging
Keywords: Drosophila larvae, neuromuscular junction remodeling, heterosynaptic structural plasticity, compensatory motor axon sprouting, ectopic muscle reinnervation, tonic and phasic motor neurons, locomotor recovery, neuron-subtype- and perturbation-specific responses
Topic: Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research (Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Neuroscience), according to OpenAlex
Funding: Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center; Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences
Citations: cited by 1 paper (Europe PMC); 65 references in the paper
Research resources: Rabbit polyclonal anti-GFP RRID:AB_221569, RRID:AB_221604, RRID:AB_2338965, RRID:AB_2534069, RRID:AB_2535849, RRID:AB_2576217, Mouse monoclonal anti-GFP RRID:AB_2617418, RRID:AB_2633276, Rabbit polyclonal anti mCherry/tdTomato RRID:AB_2753204, Mouse monoclonal anti-Dlg RRID:AB_528203

Abstract

Motor neurons (MNs) form precise neuromuscular junctions (NMJs), but the extent to which individual MNs can reinnervate fully denervated muscles in vivo remains unclear. In the Drosophila larva, most muscles are co-innervated by a tonic (Ib) and a phasic (Is) MN. We show that when all tonic and phasic inputs to a dorsal muscle field are ablated, the surviving tonic MN1 undergoes robust heterosynaptic sprouting and forms ectopic, functional NMJs on fully denervated muscles. This plasticity is not induced by acute or chronic silencing and instead requires physical loss of neighboring MNs. Longitudinal imaging reveals that sprouting begins shortly after larval hatching and expands across development. In contrast, phasic MN-Is shows minimal remodeling within its partially innervated field. Quantitative analyses indicate that MN1 increases its synaptic territory only modestly and redistributes it across native and ectopic targets. These findings define neuron-subtype–specific, injury-dependent rewiring in an intact motor circuit.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper says that its authors' code is available on request: it was not published with the paper, so there is nothing to verify.

The paper's code and data availability statement is in the Data section.

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Data

Datasets cited

Data and code availability

All the raw data along with MATLAB and R codes used for data analysis and visualization have been deposited to Mendeley Data repository which can be accessed here: "Mendeley Data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/c9fdgs69xx/2".

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 2, 28 September 2026

  • Authors: added Aref Zarin (0000-0003-0484-3622); removed Aref Zarin

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 6 authors, 8 keywords, 2 funders, 64 references, 10 RRIDs.

Cite

This paper

Olsen, L., Mandhyan, P. M., Kaur, K., Arredondo, S., Sitaula, A., & Zarin, A. (2026). Complete muscle denervation triggers compensatory sprouting of a bystander tonic motor neuron in <i>Drosophila</i> larvae. iScience, 29(8), 116099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099

BibTeX

@article{olsen2026complete,
author = {Olsen, Lizzy and Mandhyan, Parinita Mitchelle and Kaur, Komal and Arredondo, Sara and Sitaula, Ankura and Zarin, Aref},
title = {{Complete muscle denervation triggers compensatory sprouting of a bystander tonic motor neuron in \<i\>Drosophila\</i\> larvae}},
journal = {iScience},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
volume = {29},
number = {8},
pages = {116099},
publisher = {Elsevier},
issn = {2589-0042},
doi = {10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099},
pmid = {42564939},
pmcid = {PMC13446351}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Olsen, Lizzy
AU - Mandhyan, Parinita Mitchelle
AU - Kaur, Komal
AU - Arredondo, Sara
AU - Sitaula, Ankura
AU - Zarin, Aref
TI - Complete muscle denervation triggers compensatory sprouting of a bystander tonic motor neuron in <i>Drosophila</i> larvae
T2 - iScience
J2 - iScience
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/27
VL - 29
IS - 8
SP - 116099
SN - 2589-0042
PB - Elsevier
DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099
UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116099
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

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"language": "en",
"issued": {
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