Pattern Formation in the Wing of Drosophila

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Blair0077912The normal development of embryos requires the precise specification of specific tissue types, and failures in that specification underlie many birth defects and congenital diseases. Signaling between tissues and cells during development often plays a critical role in this process. However, the details underlying many important signaling pathways, and the ways in which such signals interact, is still quite poorly understood. This project examines the way in which three important signals, those mediated by the EGF, BMP and Wingless/Wnt pathways, are controlled and interact to specify one tissue type. The model system used for this work is the wing of the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. The advantages of this model system are several; the genetic and molecular analyses possible in Drosophila are perhaps unmatched by any other animal, and the mechanisms underlying development of the Drosophila wing shows several striking parallels with the mechanisms used in humans and other mammals. The work focuses specifically on the development of veins within the wing, and proposes the identification of previously undiscovered regulators of signaling by characterizing mutations that affect that process. Analyses are already underway on three such mutations: crossveinless-2, crossveinless-3, and detached. Preliminary work indicates that the gene disrupted by crossveinless-2 encodes a novel protein likely to directly potentiate BMP-like signaling during vein development by binding to the BMP ligand itself.