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Bristle patterning in Drosophila
Author(s) -
Held Lewis I.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.950131203
Subject(s) - bristle , biology , epidermis (zoology) , morphogenesis , drosophila (subgenus) , microbiology and biotechnology , key (lock) , phenotype , anatomy , evolutionary biology , genetics , gene , ecology , brush , electrical engineering , engineering
The 5000 bristles that protrude from the cuticle of a Drosophila adult function as either mechanosensors or chemosensors, and they are arranged in surprisingly intricate patterns. Development of the patterns appears to involve five stages: (1) establishment of a coordinate system of ‘positional information’; (2) partitioning of the epidermis into areas where bristles either can or cannot originate; (3) selection of one or more bristle mother cells within each permissible area; (4) suppression of bristle development in the neighborhood of each mother cell; and (5) differentiation of the mother cell to produce four or more descendant cells, each of which forms part of the bristle apparatus. Some of the genes that control these events participate in more than one stage, and others play key roles in roles in seemingly unrelated developmental pathways, including embryonic neurogenesis, body segmentation, and sex determination.