Maxillary palps or antenna @ mercy of wingless
Development journal publishes a new exciting article pertaining to the fate of Maxillary palps and antennal development in fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.The work is from the lab of David Cribbs (Centre de Biologie du Développement,Toulouse) ,who is interested in understanding role of selector genes and signaling pathways in head development.
Imaginal discs are epithelial sheet like structures found in larvae of holometabolous insects which gives rise to most of the adult structures like eyes, antenna, wings,legs, haltere and genetilia.
In the Drosophila larva, imaginal discs are programmed to produce adult structures at metamorphosis during pupal stage.These sheet like structures divide but they don’t undergo differentiation.
Most of the head structures in Drosophila comes from eye antennal imaginal dics.The eye and antennal discs are fused .The antennal disc forms two adult olfactory organs called antenna and Maxillary palps.Genetic experiments from Cribbs lab show that Hox gene Deformed defines maxillary field in antennal disc around second larval instar stage and the Maxillary organ employs a temporally delayed version of the antennal program.The maxillary region deploys a program similar to the antennal program but delayed by the late appearance of Wg.Finally they provide convincing evidence for timing of wingless signaling in deciding antennal V/S Maxillary fate using A conditionally active Wg ts(UAS WG TS) protein that is secreted at 18°C but not at 25°C.Results show that Wg signalling early in Maxillary field transforms it to antenna (Normally wg turns on in pre pupal stage in maxillary field).wg controls the maxillary-versus-antenna identity choice through spineless (antennal selector gene) dependent and independent activities.
Gaelle Lebreton, Christian Faucher, David L. Cribbs, and Corinne Benassayag
Timing of Wingless signalling distinguishes maxillary and antennal identities in Drosophila melanogaster Development 28 May 2008
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