Tissue elongation is a general feature of morphogenesis. In vertebrates, embryonic axis elongation involves cell intercalation and oriented cell division, processes controlled by the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway (which ensures that neighbouring cells adopt the correct polarity in developing tissues by promoting cell-cell communication). But what about invertebrate embryos? On p. 3049, Morais da Silva and Vincent report that both processes contribute to germband elongation (GBE) in Drosophila embryos. The germband, which forms the larva's trunk, doubles in length during early embryogenesis. Elongation of the anterior germband involves cell intercalation but not oriented cell division. By contrast, using time-lapse imaging of histone-GFP-labelled embryos, the researchers show that mitoses in the posterior germband are orientated along the axis of elongation during the fast phase of GBE and that cell division inhibition reduces GBE. This orientation of cell division, like cell intercalation in the anterior of the germband, requires segmental patterning, but neither process requires the PCP pathway. The authors propose, therefore, that an alternative means of planar polarisation must mediate tissue elongation in Drosophila embryos.
- © 2007.
Article navigation
Related articles
Cited by...
More in this TOC section
Similar articles
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Special Issue: development at the single cell level
Our Special Issue on single cell approaches to developmental biology contains a wealth of content, from research papers using various model systems to the latest cutting edge techniques and a selection of reviews and commentaries surveying the field and its future.
Meet New York-based Eduardo Leyva-Díaz and Oliver Hobert, authors of a recent Development paper on transcriptional autoregulation in C. elegans.
Meet the team
The Development team are going to be out and about through June and July. Do come and meet them! Going to the Gordon conference on Developmental Biology in South Hadley, USA, June 16 – 21? Meet our Executive Editor Katherine Brown. At the ISSCR 2019: The global stem cell event in Los Angeles, 26-29 June you can meet Senior Editor Seema Grewal. Reviews Editor Alex Eve and Online Editor Aidan Maartens will be at the SDB 78th Annual Meeting in Boston, USA, July 26-30.
The Company of Biologists Workshops - Chromatin-Based Regulation of Development
Watch a short video from this workshop, where we discussed what mechanisms related to chromatin biology inform developmental processes, explored plans to integrate unsolved developmental questions with exciting new avenues in chromatin biology, and which outstanding questions in gene regulation might be best revealed in the context of dynamic cell fate transitions. Find out about upcoming workshops here.
Are TAD borders that important to prevent enhancer rewiring? preLighter Jesus Victorino highlights a preprint by Wendy Bickmore and Laura Lettice’s team which shows that tissue-specific enhancers maintain robust control of Shh gene expression after challenging the architectural chromatin context.
Catch up with other recent preLights selected for the developmental biology community.
Articles of interest in our sister journals
Rho kinase-dependent apical constriction counteracts M-phase apical expansion to enable mouse neural tube closure
Max B. Butler, Nina E. Short, Eirini Maniou, Paula Alexandre, Nicholas D. E. Greene, Andrew J. Copp, Gabriel L. Galea
Journal of Cell Science
Suppressor of Fused regulates the proliferation of postnatal neural stem and precursor cells via a Gli3-dependent mechanism
Hector G. Gomez, Hirofumi Noguchi, Jesse Garcia Castillo, David Aguilar, Samuel J. Pleasure, Odessa R. Yabut
Biology Open