title: The wing and the eye: a parsimonious theory for scaling and growth control?
abstract: How a developing organ grows and patterns to its final shape is an important question in developmental biology. Studies of growth and patterning in the Drosophila wing imaginal disc have identified a key player, the morphogen Decapentaplegic (Dpp). These studies provided insights into our understanding of growth control and scaling: expansion of the Dpp gradient correlated with the growth of the tissue. A recent report on growth of a Drosophila organ other than the wing, the eye imaginal disc, prompts a reconsideration of our models of growth control. Despite striking differences between the two, the Dpp gradient scales with the target tissues of both organs and the growth of both the wing and the eye is controlled by Dpp. The goal of this review is to discuss whether a parsimonious model of scaling and growth control can explain the relationship between the Dpp gradient and growth in these two different developmental systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Romanova-Michaelides
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Physics, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Aguilar-Hidalgo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Physics, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jülicher
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marcos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gonzalez-Gaitan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology; D004330:Drosophila / Q000254:growth & development*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005123:Eye / Q000254:growth & development*; D060227:Imaginal Discs; D009024:Morphogenesis / Q000502:physiology; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000254:growth & development*
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C064196:dpp protein, Drosophila