title: Developmental stability: a major role for cyclin G in drosophila melanogaster.
abstract: Morphological consistency in metazoans is remarkable given the pervasive occurrence of genetic variation, environmental effects, and developmental noise. Developmental stability, the ability to reduce developmental noise, is a fundamental property of multicellular organisms, yet its genetic bases remains elusive. Imperfect bilateral symmetry, or fluctuating asymmetry, is commonly used to estimate developmental stability. We observed that Drosophila melanogaster overexpressing Cyclin G (CycG) exhibit wing asymmetry clearly detectable by sight. Quantification of wing size and shape using geometric morphometrics reveals that this asymmetry is a genuine-but extreme-fluctuating asymmetry. Overexpression of CycG indeed leads to a 40-fold increase of wing fluctuating asymmetry, which is an unprecedented effect, for any organ and in any animal model, either in wild populations or mutants. This asymmetry effect is not restricted to wings, since femur length is affected as well. Inactivating CycG by RNAi also induces fluctuating asymmetry but to a lesser extent. Investigating the cellular bases of the phenotypic effects of CycG deregulation, we found that misregulation of cell size is predominant in asymmetric flies. In particular, the tight negative correlation between cell size and cell number observed in wild-type flies is impaired when CycG is upregulated. Our results highlight the role of CycG in the control of developmental stability in D. melanogaster. Furthermore, they show that wing developmental stability is normally ensured via compensatory processes between cell growth and cell proliferation. We discuss the possible role of CycG as a hub in a genetic network that controls developmental stability.
authors: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle Département Systématique et Evolution UMR 7205, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France.
authors: Vincent
authors: V
authors: Debat
authors: Sébastien
authors: S
authors: Bloyer
authors: Floria
authors: F
authors: Faradji
authors: Nelly
authors: N
authors: Gidaszewski
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Navarro
authors: Pablo
authors: P
authors: Orozco-Terwengel
authors: Valérie
authors: V
authors: Ribeiro
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Schlötterer
authors: Jean S
authors: JS
authors: Deutsch
authors: Frédérique
authors: F
authors: Peronnet
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000235:genetics; D056746:Cyclin G / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development*; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D034622:RNA Interference; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000254:growth & development*
chemical_list: D056746:Cyclin G; D029721:Drosophila Proteins