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Selector and signalling molecules cooperate in organ patterning

Nature Cell Biology volume 4, pages E48–E51 (2002)Cite this article

Cell signalling is essential for a plethora of inductive interactions during organogenesis. Surprisingly, only a few different classes of signalling molecules mediate many inductive interactions, and these molecules are used reiteratively during development. This raises the question of how generic signals can trigger tissue-specific responses. Recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster indicate that signalling molecules cooperate with selector genes to specify particular body parts and organ types. Selector and signalling inputs are integrated at the level of cis-regulatory elements, where direct binding of both selector proteins and signal transducers is required to activate tissue-specific enhancer elements of target genes. Such enhancers include autoregulatory enhancers of the selector genes themselves, which drive the refinement of expression patterns of selector genes.

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Figure 1: Signalling-factor input combined with selector autoregulation refine expression of the selector proteins Vg and Ey.
Figure 2: The Vg/Sd complex drives different expression patterns that depend on which signalling pathway provides input.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to M. Frasch, S. Cohen and J. Wu for sharing results and ideas prior to publication. We would like to thank M. Burnett, M. Frasch, K. Gaengel, A. Jenny, J. Wu for insightful discussions and comments on the manuscript, and the entire Mlodzik lab for a stimulating environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, 10029, New York, USA

    Jennifer Curtiss & Marek Mlodzik

  2. the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Box 117, Houston, 77030-4095, Texas, USA

    Georg Halder

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Curtiss, J., Halder, G. & Mlodzik, M. Selector and signalling molecules cooperate in organ patterning. Nat Cell Biol 4, E48–E51 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0302-e48

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