Flipping coins in the fly retina.
Color vision in Drosophila melanogaster relies on the presence of two different subtypes of ommatidia: the "green" and "blue." These two classes are distributed randomly throughout the retina. The decision of a given ommatidium to take on the "green" or "blue" fate seems to be based on a stochastic mechanism. Here we compare the stochastic choice of photoreceptors in the fly retina with other known examples of random choices in both sensory and other systems.
Mikeladze-Dvali
Tamara
T
Center for Developmental Genetics, Department of Biology New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA.
Desplan
Claude
C
Pistillo
Daniela
D
D000818:Animals; D055253:Color Vision / Q000502:physiology*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000502:physiology*; D017956:Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate / Q000166:cytology*