Data from: Glial ferritin maintains neural stem cells via transporting iron required for self-renewal in Drosophila

Stem cell niche is critical for regulating the behavior of stem cells.
Drosophila neural stem cells (Neuroblasts, NBs) are encased by glial niche
cells closely, but it still remains unclear whether glial niche cells can
regulate the self-renewal and differentiation of NBs. Here we show that
ferritin produced by glia, cooperates with Zip13 to transport iron into
NBs for the energy production, which is essential to the self-renewal and
proliferation of NBs. The knockdown of glial ferritin encoding genes
causes energy shortage in NBs via downregulating aconitase activity and
NAD+ level, which leads to the low proliferation and premature
differentiation of NBs mediated by Prospero entering nuclei. More
importantly, ferritin is a potential target for tumor suppression. In
addition, the level of glial ferritin production is affected by the status
of NBs, establishing a bicellular iron homeostasis. In this study, we
demonstrate that glial cells are indispensable to maintain the
self-renewal of NBs, unveiling a novel role of the NB glial niche during
brain development.