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First published online November 21, 2008

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Photoreceptor specification gets rough

During Drosophila eye development, a single founder photoreceptor (R8) is specified in the eye imaginal disc for each of the compound eye's structural units. However, groups of disc cells express the proneural gene atonal (ato), which is required for eye development, so what restricts the R8 potential to single cells? On p. 4071, Pepple and co-workers propose a new two-step model to explain this mysterious process. The researchers show that ectopic R8s develop from R2 and R5 photoreceptor precursors independently of ectopic Ato in rough mutants (rough encodes a transcription factor that represses ato) and that Rough normally represses the R8-specific transcription factor senseless (sens) in these two precursors. Because R8 differentiation requires the repression of rough by Sens, these results suggest that sens activation by Ato and lateral inhibition together establish a transient pattern of R8s that is `locked' by a repressive feedback loop between rough and sens, a strategy that could allow the successful integration of a repressive patterning signal with developmental plasticity during eye development.

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Two-step selection of a single R8 photoreceptor: a bistable loop between senseless and rough locks in R8 fate

Kathryn L. Pepple, Mardelle Atkins, Koen Venken, Kari Wellnitz, Mark Harding, Benjamin Frankfort, and Graeme Mardon
Development 2008 135: 4071-4079. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?