Notch signaling and the determination of appendage identity

Notch signaling and the determination of appendage identity

^*Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku University, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8578, Japan; ^†Department of Neuroscience and Immunology, Kumamoto University, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Honjo 2–2-1, Kumamoto 860-0811, Japan; ^‡Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Building 149, 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129; and ^§Biozentrum, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 70, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

Contributed by Walter J. Gehring

Abstract

The Notch signaling pathway defines an evolutionarily conserved cell–cell interaction mechanism that throughout development controls the ability of precursor cells to respond to developmental signals. Here we show that Notch signaling regulates the expression of the master control genes eyeless, vestigial, and Distal-less, which in combination with homeotic genes induce the formation of eyes, wings, antennae, and legs. Therefore, Notch is involved in a common regulatory pathway for the determination of the various Drosophila appendages.

Footnotes

Article published online before print: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.040556497.
Article and publication date are at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.040556497
Abbreviations:

EY,

eyeless;

DLL,

Distal-less;

VG,

vestigial;

ELAV,

embryonic lethal abnormal visual system;

UAS,

upstream-activating sequence