Control of apterous by vestigial drives indirect flight muscle development in drosophila
Drosophila thoracic muscles are comprised of both direct flight muscles (DFMs) and indirect flight muscles (IFMs). The IFMs can be further subdivided into dorsolongitudinal muscles (DLMs) and dorsoventral muscles (DVMs). The correct patterning of each category of muscles requires the coordination of...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Developmental biology 2003-08, Vol.260 (2), p.391-403 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | Drosophila thoracic muscles are comprised of both direct flight muscles (DFMs) and indirect flight muscles (IFMs). The IFMs can be further subdivided into dorsolongitudinal muscles (DLMs) and dorsoventral muscles (DVMs). The correct patterning of each category of muscles requires the coordination of specific executive regulatory programs. DFM development requires key regulatory genes such as
cut (
ct) and
apterous (
ap), whereas IFM development requires
vestigial (
vg). Using a new
vg
null
mutant, we report that a total absence of
vg leads to DLM degeneration through an apoptotic process and to a total absence of DVMs in the adult. We show that
vg and
scalloped (
sd), the only known VG transcriptional coactivator, are coexpressed during IFM development. Moreover, we observed an ectopic expression of
ct and
ap, two markers of DFM development, in developing IFMs of
vg
null
pupae. In addition, in
vg
null
adult flies, degenerating DLMs express
twist (
twi) ectopically. We provide evidence that
ap ectopic expression can induce per se ectopic
twi expression and muscle degeneration. All these data seem to indicate that, in the absence of
vg, the IFM developmental program switches into the DFM developmental program. Moreover, we were able to rescue the muscle phenotype of
vg
null
flies by using the activity of
ap promoter to drive VG expression. Thus,
vg appears to be a key regulatory gene of IFM development. |
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ISSN: | 0012-1606 1095-564X |
DOI: | 10.1016/S0012-1606(03)00255-0 |