Abstract
The establishment of embryonic polarity is a crucial step in pattern formation and morphogenesis. In the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, embryonic polarity depends primarily on genes expressed in the female during oogenesis. Mutations in these ‘maternal effect’ genes can lead to major disruptions in normal pattern formation. Two classes of maternal genes essential for the establishment of polarity in the embryo have been identified. Lesions in one class, the ‘bicaudal’ genes, disrupt the anterior–posterior axis1; lesions in the other class disrupt dorsal–ventral polarity, and in the most extreme cases embryos fail to form any ventral or lateral structures. Genetic studies suggest that the anterior–posterior and dorsal–ventral axes may be independent as the defects observed in mutants from each class seem to be restricted to one axis only2. The dorsal (dl) locus2 is one of the maternal effect genes involved in the establishment of dorsal–ventral polarity. Homozygous dl females produce embryos exhibiting the mutant phenotype—complete lack of dorsal–ventral polarity in the strongest alleles—irrespective of the genotype of the father. Although dl is a maternal effect locus and must be expressed during oogenesis, the gene product, or a substance depending on the normal function of the dl gene, seems to be active early in embryogenesis, as the dl phenotype can be partially rescued by injection of cytoplasm from wild-type cleavage-stage embryos3,4. Here we report the molecular cloning of the dorsal locus and a study of its expression.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Nüsslein-Volhard, C. Wilhelm Roux Arch. dev. Biol. 183, 249–268 (1977).
Nüsslein-Volhard, C. in Determination of Spatial Organization (eds Subtelney, S. & Koenigsberg, I. R.) 185–211 (Academic, New York, 1979).
Santamaria, P. & Nüsslein-Volhard, C. EMBO J. 2, 1695–1699 (1983).
Anderson, K. V. & Nüsslein-Volhard, C. in Primers in Developmental Biology (ed. Malacinski, G.) (Macmillan, New York, 1983).
Wright, T. R. F., Hodgetts, R. B. & Sherald, A. F. Genetics 84, 267–285 (1976).
Hirsch, J. & Davidson, N. Molec. cell. Biol. 1, 475–585 (1981).
Bender, W., Spierer, P. & Hogness, D. S. J. molec. Biol. 168, 17–33 (1983).
Fyrberg, E. A., Mahaffey, J. W., Bond, B. J. & Davidson, N. Cell 33, 119–123 (1983).
Anderson, K. V. & Lengyel, J. A. in Histone Genes (eds Stein, G. & Stein, J.) 135–161 (Wiley, New York, 1984).
Zalokar, M. Devl. Biol. 49, 425–432 (1976).
McKnight, S. & Miller, O. L. Cell 8, 305–319 (1976).
Chan, L.-N. & Gehring, W. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci U.S.A. 68, 2217–2221 (1971).
Anderson, K. V. & Nüsslein-Volhard, C. Nature 311, 223–227 (1984).
Maniatis, T. et al. Cell 15, 682–701 (1978).
Lindsley, D. & Grell, E. H. in Genetic Variations of Drosophila melanogaster (Carnegie, Washington, 1968).
Pardue, M. & Gall, J. G. Meth. cell Biol. 10, 1–16 (1975).
Maniatis, T., Jeffrey, A. & Kleid, G. D. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 72, 1184–1188 (1975).
Southern, E. J. molec. Biol. 98, 503–517 (1975).
Ish-Horowicz, D., Pinchin, S. M., Schedl, P., Astavanis-Tsakonas, S. & Mirault, M. E. Cell 18, 1351–1358 (1979).
Holmgren, R., Croces, V., Morimoto, R., Blackman, R. & Meselson, M. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 78, 3757–3761 (1981).
O'Hare, K., Levis, R. & Rubin, G. M. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 80, 6917–6921 (1983).
Hu, N. & Messing, J. Gene 17, 271–277 (1982).
Lehrach, H., Diamond, J., Wozney, J. & Boedtker, H. Biochemistry 16, 4743–4751 (1977).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Steward, R., McNally, F. & Schedl, P. Isolation of the dorsal locus of Drosophila. Nature 311, 262–265 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/311262a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/311262a0
This article is cited by
-
The emerging role of Toll-like receptor 4 in myocardial inflammation
Cell Death & Disease (2016)
-
Peptides containing the cell-attachment recognition signal Arg-Gly-Asp prevent gastrulation in Drosophila embryos
Nature (1987)
-
Developmental biology: Unscrambling egg structure
Nature (1986)
-
Organization of transcription units around the Drosophila melanogaster rudimentary locus and temporal pattern of expression
Molecular and General Genetics MGG (1986)
-
Information for the dorsal–ventral pattern of the Drosophila embryo is stored as maternal mRNA
Nature (1984)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.