slimb coordinates wg and dpp expression in the dorsal-ventral and anterior-posterior axes during limb development

Development. 1998 Sep;125(17):3411-6. doi: 10.1242/dev.125.17.3411.

Abstract

In the Drosophila leg disc, wingless (wg) and decapentaplegic (dpp) are expressed in a ventral-anterior and dorsal-anterior stripe of cells, respectively. This pattern of expression is essential for proper limb development. While the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway regulates dpp and wg expression in the anterior-posterior (A/P) axis, mechanisms specifying their expression in the dorsal-ventral (D/V) axis are not well understood. We present evidence that slimb mutant clones in the disc deregulate wg and dpp expression in the D/V axis. This suggests for the first time that their expression in the D/V axis is actively regulated during imaginal disc development. Furthermore, slimb is unique in that it also deregulates wg and dpp in the A/P axis. The misexpression phenotypes of slimb- clones indicate that the regulation of wg and dpp expression is coordinated in both axes, and that slimb plays an essential role in integrating A/P and D/V signals for proper patterning during development. Our genetic analysis further reveals that slimb intersects the A/P pathway upstream of smoothened (smo).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Body Patterning / genetics*
  • Cell Cycle Proteins / genetics
  • Cell Cycle Proteins / physiology
  • Cloning, Molecular
  • Drosophila / genetics*
  • Drosophila / growth & development*
  • Drosophila Proteins*
  • Extremities / growth & development*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
  • Genes, Insect*
  • Insect Proteins / genetics
  • Insect Proteins / physiology
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Mosaicism
  • Mutation
  • Phenotype
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins / genetics
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins / physiology
  • Restriction Mapping
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
  • Signal Transduction / genetics
  • Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases*
  • Wnt1 Protein

Substances

  • Cell Cycle Proteins
  • Drosophila Proteins
  • Insect Proteins
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins
  • Wnt1 Protein
  • dpp protein, Drosophila
  • slmb protein, Drosophila
  • wg protein, Drosophila
  • Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases