The control of self-renewal and differentiation of neural stem and progenitor cells is a crucial issue in stem cell and cancer biology.Drosophila type II neuroblast lineages are prone Spatulas to developing impaired neuroblast homeostasis if the limited self-renewing potential of intermediate neural progenitors (INPs) is unrestrained.Here, we demonstrate that Drosophila SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling Brahma (Brm) complex functions cooperatively with another chromatin remodeling factor, Histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) to suppress the formation of ectopic type II neuroblasts.We show that multiple components of the Brm complex and HDAC3 physically associate with Earmuff (Erm), a type II-specific transcription factor that prevents dedifferentiation of INPs into neuroblasts.
Consistently, the predicted Erm-binding motif is present in most of known binding loci of Brm.Furthermore, brm and hdac3 genetically interact with erm to prevent type II neuroblast overgrowth.Thus, the Brm-HDAC3-Erm repressor Machines complex suppresses dedifferentiation of INPs back into type II neuroblasts.