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Caudal is the Hox gene that specifies the most posterior Drosophile segment

Nature volume 400, pages 873–877 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

The homeobox gene caudal (cad) has a maternal embryonic function that establishes the antero–posterior body axis of Drosophila1,2. It also has a conserved2,4 late embryonic and imaginal function1 related to the development of the posterior body region. Here we report the developmental role of cad in adult Drosophila. It is required for the normal development of the analia structures, which derive from the most posterior body segment. In the absence of cad function, the analia develop like the immediately anterior segment (male genitalia), following the transformation rule of the canonical Hox genes5. We also show that cad can induce ectopic analia development if expressed in the head or wing. We propose that cad is the Hox gene that determines the development of the fly's most posterior segment. cad acts in combination with the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway6 to specify the different components of the analia: the activities of cad and of the Hh pathway induce Distal-less expression that, together with cad, promote external analia development. In the absence of the Hh pathway, cad induces internal analia development, probably by activating the brachyenteron and even-skipped genes.

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Figure 1: Analia subdomains in adult derivatives and imaginal discs.
Figure 2: Homeotic transformations of cad− clones.
Figure 3: Ectopic cad expression.
Figure 4: The Hh pathway in the analia primordium.
Figure 5: Interactions between cad and the Hh pathway.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Fernandez, T. Kusch, C. Parras, R. Rivera, I. Rodriguez and G. Struhl for antibodies, cDNAs and fly stocks; J. Casanova and E. Sanchez-Herrero for comments on the manuscript; S. Gonzalez for helping with the DNA injections; and R. Gonzalez and J. M. Galán for their technical help. This work was supported by grants from the Dirección General de Investigación Cientifica y Técnica and from the Human Frontier Science Program. An institutional grant from the Fundacion Ramon Areces to the Centro de Biologia Molecular is also acknowledged. E.M. is supported by a scholarship from the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid.

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  1. Centro de Biologia Molecular CSIC-UAM, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Eduardo Moreno & Ginés Morata

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Correspondence to Ginés Morata.

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Moreno, E., Morata, G. Caudal is the Hox gene that specifies the most posterior Drosophile segment. Nature 400, 873–877 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/23709

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