title: Lessons about terminal differentiation from the specification of color-detecting photoreceptors in the Drosophila retina.
abstract: Metazoans require highly diverse collections of cell types to sense, interpret, and react to the environment. Developmental programs incorporate deterministic and stochastic strategies in different contexts or different combinations to establish this multitude of cell fates. Precise genetic dissection of the processes controlling terminal photoreceptor differentiation in the Drosophila retina has revealed complex regulatory mechanisms required to generate differences in gene expression and cell fate. In this review, I discuss how a gene regulatory network interprets stochastic and regional inputs to determine the specification of color-detecting photoreceptor subtypes in the Drosophila retina. These combinatorial gene regulatory mechanisms will likely be broadly applicable to nervous system development and cell fate specification in general.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218-2685, USA. robertjohnston@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Johnston
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D055253:Color Vision; D004330:Drosophila / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D017956:Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D012160:Retina / Q000166:cytology* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D012243:Rhodopsin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013269:Stochastic Processes
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005136:Eye Proteins; D020033:Protein Isoforms; D012243:Rhodopsin
keywords: Rhodopsin; feedforward loop; regulatory network; retina; stochastic