Data from: Drosophila Sulf1 is required for the termination of intestinal stem cell division during regeneration

Stem cell division is activated to trigger regeneration in response to
tissue damage. The molecular mechanisms by which this stem cell mitotic
activity is properly repressed at the end of regeneration are poorly
understood. Here, we show that a specific modification of heparan sulfate
is crucial for regulating Drosophila intestinal stem cell (ISC) division
during normal midgut homeostasis and regeneration. Loss of the
extracellular heparan sulfate endosulfatase Sulf1 resulted in increased
ISC division during normal homeostasis, which was caused by upregulation
of mitogenic signaling including the JAK-STAT, EGFR and Hedgehog pathways.
Using a regeneration model, we found that ISCs failed to properly halt
division at the termination stage in Sulf1 mutants, showing that Sulf1 is
required for terminating ISC division at the end of regeneration. We
propose that post-transcriptional regulation of mitogen signaling by
heparan sulfate structural modifications provides a new regulatory step
for precise temporal control of stem cell activity during regeneration.