The role of Hox genes in the specification of circuits controlling specialised behaviours

动物、老鼠、苍蝇或人类，都会产生不同的刻板动作，这些动作与身体轴线上不同的专门身体部位有关。例如，我们呼吸（隔膜），咀嚼（颌）和行走（腿）。控制这些运动的神经回路位于神经系统轴线上的不同点。这意味着，随着神经系统的发育，不同位置的神经细胞群被特别地聚集起来，形成不同的回路，以实现这些特殊的行为。这是如何控制的？我们知道Hox基因在这个过程中发挥了作用，我的实验旨在准确地展示这些基因是如何控制运动所需的局部特定神经细胞模式的形成的。我将使用果蝇，因为发育机制在不同动物之间是保守的，因为果蝇在遗传和细胞操作方面非常出色。果蝇的另一个优点是，神经系统的不同部分是由沿着前后轴重复的相似的祖细胞组产生的。所以我要问的问题是Hox基因是如何控制这些相等的细胞组合成不同的特定运动模式的专门网络的？虽然这项工作的目的是揭示基本原理，但它有可能造福社会。人类神经系统的许多疾病（如精神分裂症、癫痫和自闭症）很可能是由于发育早期神经网络组装不当而引起的。通过研究果蝇的神经发育机制，我们可以揭示核心原理，这些原理随后可用于临床研究，旨在了解人类神经疾病的发育基础。

Animals, mouse, fly or humans, generate different stereotyped movements associated with different specialized body parts along their body axes. We, for example breathe (diaphragm), chew (jaws) and walk (legs). The nerve circuits that control these movements are located at different points along the axis of the nervous system. This means that, somehow, as the nervous system develops, groups of nerve cells at different positions are specifically assembled to make the different circuits for these specialised behaviours. How is this controlled? We know that the Hox genes have a role in this process and my experiments are designed to show exactly how these genes control the formation of locally specific patterns of nerve cells required for movement. I will use the fruitfly Drosophila because developmental mechanisms are conserved between different animals and because Drosophila is excellent for genetic and cellular manipulations. Another advantage of the fruitfly is that the different parts of the nervous system arise from similar sets of progenitor cells that are repeated along the anterioposterior axis. So the question I will ask is How Hox genes control the assembly of these of equivalent sets of cells into different specialized networks for specific patterns of movement?Although the work is aimed at uncovering fundamental principles it has potential to benefit society. It is likely that many diseases of the human nervous system (e.g. schizophrenia, epilepsy and autism) arise from the improper assembly of neural networks early in development. By studying the mechanisms of neural development in flies, we can uncover core principles that could subsequently be used to inform clinical research aimed at understanding the developmental basis of human neural disorders.