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First published online 28 May 2008
doi: 10.1242/dev.017053

Development 135, 2301-2309 (2008)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
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Timing of Wingless signalling distinguishes maxillary and antennal identities in Drosophila melanogaster

Gaëlle Lebreton, Christian Faucher, David L. Cribbs* and Corinne Benassayag

Centre de Biologie du Développement, UMR 5547 and IFR 109, Université de Toulouse and CNRS, 118 route de Narbonne, Bâtiment 4R3, 31062 Toulouse Cedex, France.

* Author for correspondence (e-mail: cribbs{at}cict.fr)

Accepted 7 May 2008

The Drosophila adult head mostly derives from the composite eye-antenna imaginal disc. The antennal disc gives rise to two adult olfactory organs: the antennae and maxillary palps. Here, we have analysed the regional specification of the maxillary palp within the antennal disc. We found that a maxillary field, defined by expression of the Hox gene Deformed, is established at about the same time as the eye and antennal fields during the L2 larval stage. The genetic program leading to maxillary regionalisation and identity is very similar to the antennal one, but is distinguished primarily by delayed prepupal expression of the ventral morphogen Wingless (Wg). We find that precociously expressing Wg in the larval maxillary field suffices to transform it towards antennal identity, whereas overexpressing Wg later in prepupae does not. These results thus indicate that temporal regulation of Wg is decisive to distinguishing maxillary and antennal organs. Wg normally acts upstream of the antennal selector spineless (ss) in maxillary development. However, mis-expression of Ss can prematurely activate wg via a positive-feedback loop leading to a maxillary-to-antenna transformation. We characterised: (1) the action of Wg through ss selector function in distinguishing maxillary from antenna; and (2) its direct contribution to identity choice.

Key words: Wingless, Eye-antenna disc, Spineless, Temporal regulation, Maxillary palps






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