Reyes Rosalío, Rodriguez-Muñoz Rafael, Nahmad Marcos
Department of Physiology, Biophysics, and Neurosciences; Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav), Mexico City, Mexico.
Interdisciplinary Polytechnic Unit of Biotechnology of the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico City, Mexico.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 3;20(1):e0313067. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0313067. eCollection 2025.
The mechanisms underlying the establishment of asymmetric structures during development remain elusive. The wing of Drosophila is asymmetric along the Anterior-Posterior (AP) axis, but the developmental origins of this asymmetry is unknown. Here, we investigate the contribution of cell recruitment, a process that drives cell fate differentiation in the Drosophila wing disc, to the asymmetric shape and pattern of the adult wing. Genetic impairment of cell recruitment in the wing disc results in a significant gain of AP symmetry, which results from a reduction of the region between longitudinal vein 5 and the wing margin (L5-M) in the adult wing. Morphometric analysis confirms that blocking of cell recruitment results in a more symmetric wing with respect to controls, suggesting a contribution of cell recruitment to the establishment of asymmetry in the adult wing. In order to verify if this phenotype is originated during the time in which cell recruitment occurs during larval development, we examined the expression of a reporter for the selector gene vestigial (vg) in the corresponding pro-vein regions of the wing disc, but our findings could not explain our findings in adult wings. However, the circularity of the Vg pattern significantly increases in recruitment-impaired wing discs, suggesting that cell recruitment may contribute to AP asymmetries in the adult wing shape by altering the roundness of the Vg pattern. We conclude that cell recruitment, a widespread mechanism that participates in growth and patterning of several developing systems, may contribute, at least partially, to the asymmetric shape of the Drosophila wing.
发育过程中不对称结构形成的潜在机制仍不清楚。果蝇的翅膀沿前后（AP）轴不对称，但其不对称的发育起源尚不清楚。在这里，我们研究细胞募集的作用，这一过程驱动果蝇翅芽中的细胞命运分化，对成虫翅膀的不对称形状和图案的影响。翅芽中细胞募集的基因损伤导致AP对称性显著增加，这是由于成虫翅膀中纵脉5和翅边缘（L5-M）之间区域的减少所致。形态计量分析证实，与对照相比，阻断细胞募集会导致翅膀更对称，这表明细胞募集对成虫翅膀不对称性的建立有贡献。为了验证这种表型是否起源于幼虫发育过程中细胞募集发生的时期，我们检测了翅芽相应前脉区域中选择基因残翅（vg）报告基因的表达，但我们的发现无法解释我们在成虫翅膀中的发现。然而，在募集受损的翅芽中，Vg模式的圆形度显著增加，这表明细胞募集可能通过改变Vg模式的圆度，对成虫翅膀形状的AP不对称性有贡献。我们得出结论，细胞募集作为一种广泛参与多个发育系统生长和图案形成的机制，可能至少部分地促成了果蝇翅膀的不对称形状。
