Gene Expression During Drosophila Wing Morphogenesis and Differentiation

The simple cellular composition and array of distally pointing hairs has made the Drosophila wing a favored system for studying planar polarity and the coordination of cellular and tissue level morphogenesis. We carried out a gene expression screen to identify candidate genes that functioned in wing and wing hair morphogenesis. Pupal wing RNA was isolated from tissue prior to, during, and after hair growth and used to probe Affymetrix Drosophila gene chips. We identified 435 genes whose expression changed at least fivefold during this period and 1335 whose expression changed at least twofold. As a functional validation we chose 10 genes where genetic reagents existed but where there was little or no evidence for a wing phenotype. New phenotypes were found for 9 of these genes, providing functional validation for the collection of identified genes. Among the phenotypes seen were a delay in hair initiation, defects in hair maturation, defects in cuticle formation and pigmentation, and abnormal wing hair polarity. The collection of identified genes should be a valuable data set for future studies on hair and bristle morphogenesis, cuticle synthesis, and planar polarity.