Fly: Pericardial Nephrocyte (FBbt_00005058)
Fly pericardial nephrocyte is a cell type that forms the outer layer of the Drosophila dorsal vessel. Pericardial nephrocyte is podocyte-like and has been used to model and study human podocytes.
Above is a graphic of fly nephrocytes (Reference: https://droso4schools.wordpress.com/organs/). Copyright: Andreas Prokop.
FBbt ID: FBbt_00005058, FBbt:00005058
FBbt definition: Cell which forms the outer layer of the dorsal vessel. [database_cross_reference: FlyBase:FBrf0207370][database_cross_reference: FlyBase:FBrf0089570]
Synonyms: pericardial cell; pericardial nephrocyte
Cross-reference to Cell Ontology term: CL_0000474.
Cell Hierarchy (defined by FBbt):
pericardial cell hierarchy according to the Drosophila gross anatomy (FBbt):
Above is a graphic of pericardial cell hierarchy (source: screenshot from Ontobee). Later on we will show a cell hierarchy with live links to other cell types. Also, a nice graphic cell hierarchy is seen here.
Anatomical Location:
Pericardial nephrocytes are located at and indeed form the outer layer of the dorsal vessel.
Check: 3D architecture of pericardial nephrocytes in D. melanogaster revealed by FIB/SEM tomography.
Cell Biomarkers:
Drosophila has two nephrin orthologues - sticks and stones (sns) and hibris (hbs) and two neph1 orthologues - dumbfounded (duf) and roughest (rst) (Ref: PMC2687078).
Cell Differentation and Lineage:
Drosophila Klf15 (dKlf15, previously known as Bteb2), is critical for the development and differentiation of Drosophila nephrocytes (Ref: PMC4547745). Klf15 is a transcription factor required for mammalian podocyte differentiation.
Cell Type Evolution Among Organisms:
Fly pericardial nephrocyte is analogous to many cells in other organisms:
- Mammalian podocyte: Fly pericardial nephrocyte is analogous to human podocyte. As seen in Fig. 5 in the PNAS paper Xu et al, 2022, adult fly pericardial nephrocytes and mouse kidney podocytes are homologs. The Fig. 1 in another study by Na et al. 2015 also shows Drosophila adult pericardial nephrocytes are analogous to the podocytes.
- Worm excretory cell: https://cellcards.org/worm_excretory_cell.php.
Note that a major difference to the mammalian kidney is that these nephrocytes have no connection to the tubular system of Drosophila that independently generates, modifies, and finally excretes urine into the intestinal lumen. Ref: PMCID: PMC5725439.
Related Key Gene Ontology Terms:
- pericardial nephrocyte differentiation (GO_0061320, FlyBase: GO:0061320): The process in which a relatively unspecialized cell acquires the specialized structural and/or functional features of a pericardial nephrocyte. A pericardial nephrocyte is an insect renal cell that filters hemolymph and is found with other pericardial nephrocytes in two rows flanking the dorsal vessel. Differentiation includes the processes involved in commitment of a cell to a specific fate and its subsequent development to the mature state. Source: PMID:19783135, GOC:dph, GOC:sart, GOC:mtg_kidney_jan10, CL:0000474.
Neighborhood cell types:
There are two distinct Drosophila nephrocyte populations: the pericardial nephrocytes along the heart tube and the garland cell nephrocytes in a garland-like ring around the esophagus. Ref: PMCID: PMC5725439.
Gene Expression Profiles:
- Kidney cell RNAseq plot: https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/rna_seq_base/web/showProject/38/plot_coord=1/sample_id=all.
Pathways and Functional Maps:
More to add. Stay tuned ...
References:
- FlyBase: https://flybase.org.
- FlyBase ID Converter: https://www.biotools.fr/drosophila/fbgn_converter.
- BioLitMine - Biological Literature Mining Tool for Human and Model Organisms: https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/biolitmine/web/.
- Fly Cell RNA Seq Plot: https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/rna_seq_base/web/.
- Single Cell DB: https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/single_cell/web/.
- Wiki - Drosophila melanogaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster.
- SAMap tool: https://github.com/atarashansky/SAMap. See its usage in a Fly study: PMC9231607 (by Xu et al, 2022).
- Martin Helmstadter, Tobias B. Huber, and Tobias Hermle. Using the Drosophila Nephrocyte to Model Podocyte Function and Disease. Front Pediatr. 2017 Dec 7;5:262. PMCID: PMC5725439.
- Helen Weavers, Silvia Prieto-Sanchez, Ferdinand Grawe, Amparo Garcia-Lopez, Ruben Artero, Michaela Wilsch-Braeuninger, Mar Ruiz-Gomez, Helen Skaer, and Barry Denholm. The insect nephrocyte is a podocyte-like cell with a filtration slit diaphragm. Nature. 2009. 457(7227): 322--326. PMCID: PMC2687078.
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