Cell Recruitment Drives Growth of the Drosophila Wing by Overscaling the Vestigial Expression Pattern
47 Pages Posted: 8 Feb 2019 Publication Status: Review Complete
More...Abstract
Organs mainly attain their size by cell growth and proliferation, but may also grow through recruitment of undifferentiated cells. Here we investigate the participation of cell recruitment in establishing the pattern of Vestigial (Vg), the product of the wing selector gene in Drosophila. We find that throughout wing disc development, the Vg pattern overscales, i.e., it expands more than predicted by tissue growth. This overscaling phenotype cannot be explained by the dynamics of the Wingless gradient that acts upstream of Vg, but is recapitulated by a mathematical model that explicitly incorporates a cell recruitment mechanism. Indeed, genetically impairing cell recruitment results in almost perfect scaling of the Vg pattern and smaller adult wings. A lineage-tracing experiment provides direct evidence of cell recruitment and shows that it occurs at a specific developmental time. We propose that cell recruitment drives growth of the Drosophila wing as a two-step process; first, by expanding the width of the Vg pattern, and then by increasing Vg levels.
Keywords: Organ growth, patterning, Vestigial, cell recruitment, pattern scaling, Drosophila wing disc
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