Yu-Chieh Chen
Temple University, PA·Neuroscience·Early-career
A working brain circuit requires two things to match up: each neuron must take on the right identity, and it must find and connect to the right partner. In many parts of the nervous system, some cells choose their identity at random while their partners are produced by fixed, predictable developmental programs.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
Drosophila
color vision
photoreceptors
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Test whether the cell adhesion molecules Beat-IIIc and Side-V are required for synapse formation between pale-subtype R7 photoreceptors and their pale Dm8 partner neurons, using CRISPR-based loss-of-function mutations in Drosophila.
- Track when and where Side-V appears in pale R7 photoreceptors and Beat-IIIc in pale Dm8 neurons during pupal development, using cell-type-specific driver lines built from single-cell RNA sequencing data.
- Determine how optic lobe neuron types respond when the proportions of yellow and pale photoreceptor subtypes in the retina are changed, mapping which partners adjust their numbers or wiring.
- Identify how the randomly assigned yellow/pale identity of R7 photoreceptors propagates to neurons downstream of Dm8 cells within the color vision circuit.
- Test the hypothesis that stochastic circuit assembly relies on cell number scaling at one level and synaptic arborization scaling at another, comparing these measures across circuit layers.
More about the research
How a randomly assigned identity gets communicated to a partner cell that was never told what to expect is largely unknown. This project uses color vision in the fruit fly Drosophila to work out the molecular rules, because both the development and the wiring diagram of this circuit are unusually well understood.
Why it matters
Circuits assembled partly by chance still work reliably, and understanding how identity and partner choice are coordinated reveals general principles of brain wiring. The adhesion molecules identified as matching specific synaptic partners during development could also inform how connections might be re-established after injury or in neurodegenerative disease, and point toward potential therapeutic directions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Richard Sando
Vanderbilt University, TN·Neuroscience·Early-career
Determine the biological functions and intracellular signaling mechanisms of adhesion G-protein-coupled receptors (aGPCRs), cell-surface proteins that both glue neurons together and trigger signaling, building on the lab's finding that Latrophilins set synaptic wiring specificity in hippocampal CA1.
Robert Carrillo
University of Chicago, IL·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test how combinations of Dpr and DIP cell surface proteins tell Drosophila motor neurons which muscles to connect to, using single-cell genetic changes in motor neurons that express six DIPs.
George Spirou
University of South Florida, FL·Neuroscience
Determine which steps in principal neuron maturation depend on spontaneous activity by suppressing activity at the calyx of Held synapse and tracking maturation day by day.
The school
Temple University: 22 labs on PI Pages, $315M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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