A re-examination of the selection of the sensory organ precursor of the bristle sensilla of Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: The bristle sensillum of the imago of Drosophila is made of four cells that arise from a sensory organ precursor cell (SOP). This SOP is selected within proneural clusters (PNC) through a mechanism that involves Notch signalling. PNCs are defined through the expression domains of the proneural genes, whose activities enables cells to become SOPs. They encode tissue specific bHLH proteins that form functional heterodimers with the bHLH protein Daughterless (Da). In the prevailing lateral inhibition model for SOP selection, a transcriptional feedback loop that involves the Notch pathway amplifies small differences of proneural activity between cells of the PNC. As a result only one or two cells accumulate sufficient proneural activity to adopt the SOP fate. Most of the experiments that susta

SUBMITTER: Troost T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4287480 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature