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First published online 9 November 2005
doi: 10.1242/dev.02150

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Mis-specified cells die by an active gene-directed process, and inhibition of this death results in cell fate transformation in Drosophila

Christian Werz^1,*, Tom V. Lee^1,2, Peter L. Lee¹, Melinda Lackey¹, Clare Bolduc¹, David S. Stein³ and Andreas Bergmann^1,2,

¹ The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Unit 1000, Houston, TX 77030, USA
² The Genes and Development Graduate Program (http://www.mdanderson.org/genedev)
³ The University of Texas at Austin, Patterson labs 532, Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, 2401 W24th and Speedway, Austin, TX 78712, USA

Author for correspondence (e-mail: abergman{at}mdanderson.org)

Accepted 5 October 2005

Incorrectly specified or mis-specified cells often undergo cell death or are transformed to adopt a different cell fate during development. The underlying cause for this distinction is largely unknown. In many developmental mutants in Drosophila, large numbers of mis-specified cells die synchronously, providing a convenient model for analysis of this phenomenon. The maternal mutant bicoid is particularly useful model with which to address this issue because its mutant phenotype is a combination of both transformation of tissue (acron to telson) and cell death in the presumptive head and thorax regions. We show that a subset of these mis-specified cells die through an active gene-directed process involving transcriptional upregulation of the cell death inducer hid. Upregulation of hid also occurs in oskar mutants and other segmentation mutants. In hid bicoid double mutants, mis-specified cells in the presumptive head and thorax survive and continue to develop, but they are transformed to adopt a different cell fate. We provide evidence that the terminal torso signaling pathway protects the mis-specified telson tissue in bicoid mutants from hid-induced cell death, whereas mis-specified cells in the head and thorax die, presumably because equivalent survival signals are lacking. These data support a model whereby mis-specification can be tolerated if a survival pathway is provided, resulting in cellular transformation.

Key words: Mis-specification, Cell death, Transformation, Bicoid, Oskar, Hid, Drosophila

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