Evidence for Notch-mediated lateral inhibition in organizing butterfly wing scales.
Here I present gene expression data that implicate a Notch-mediated lateral inhibition process in the spatial organization of butterfly wing scales. During early pupal development the receptor molecule Notch is expressed in a grid-like pattern in the wing epithelium, resulting in parallel rows of uniformly spaced cells with low Notch expression. Previous work has shown that these low-Notch cells express a homolog of the achaete-scute proneural transcription factors and develop into scales. All of these observations are consistent with the Drosophila model of Notch-mediated bristle determination and support the hypothesis that bristles and scales share an underlying patterning mechanism.
Reed
Robert D
RD
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721, USA. reed@u.arizona.edu
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D019521:Body Patterning; D002080:Butterflies / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D008954:Models, Biological; D011679:Pupa / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D051880:Receptors, Notch; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism
D008565:Membrane Proteins; D051880:Receptors, Notch