Peifer M, Orsulic S, Sweeton D, Wieschaus E
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-3280.
Development. 1993 Aug;118(4):1191-207. doi: 10.1242/dev.118.4.1191.
The epithelial sheet is a structural unit common to many tissues. Its organization appears to depend on the function of the multi-protein complexes that form adherens junctions. Elegant cell biological experiments have provided support for hypotheses explaining the function of adherens junctions and of their components. These systems, however, lack the ability to test function within an entire organism during development. The realization that the product of the Drosophila segment polarity gene armadillo is related to the vertebrate adhesive junction components plakoglobin and beta-catenin led to the suggestion that armadillo might provide a genetic handle to study adhesive junction structure and function. An examination of the potential function of Armadillo in cell-cell adhesive junctions was initiated using the Drosophila ovary as the model system. We examined the distribution of Armadillo in the Drosophila ovary and demonstrated that this localization often parallels the location of cell-cell adhesive junctions. The consequences of removing armadillo function from the germ-line cells of the ovary were also examined. Germ-line armadillo mutations appear to disrupt processes requiring cell adhesion and integrity of the actin cytoskeleton, consistent with a role for Armadillo in cell-cell adhesive junctions. We have also used armadillo mutations to examine the effects on ovarian development of altering the stereotyped cell arrangements of the ovary. The implications of these results for the role of adhesive junctions during development are discussed.
上皮细胞层是许多组织共有的结构单元。其组织结构似乎取决于形成黏着连接的多蛋白复合物的功能。精巧的细胞生物学实验为解释黏着连接及其组成成分功能的假说提供了支持。然而，这些系统缺乏在发育过程中在整个生物体中测试功能的能力。果蝇体节极性基因犰狳的产物与脊椎动物黏附连接成分桥粒斑珠蛋白和β-连环蛋白相关，这一发现促使人们提出，犰狳可能为研究黏附连接的结构和功能提供一种遗传学手段。利用果蝇卵巢作为模型系统，开始研究犰狳在细胞间黏附连接中的潜在功能。我们研究了犰狳在果蝇卵巢中的分布，证明这种定位通常与细胞间黏附连接的位置平行。我们还研究了从卵巢生殖细胞中去除犰狳功能的后果。生殖系犰狳突变似乎会破坏需要细胞黏附和肌动蛋白细胞骨架完整性的过程，这与犰狳在细胞间黏附连接中的作用一致。我们还利用犰狳突变来研究改变卵巢中定型细胞排列对卵巢发育的影响。讨论了这些结果对发育过程中黏附连接作用的意义。
