The gene capicua is required for the establishment of dorsal-ventral polarity in the Drosophila melanogaster ovary. Loss of capicua function in the follicle cells results in dorsalization of both the embryo and eggshell. The most prominent dorsal features of the Drosophila eggshell are the dorsal appendages. We show that loss of capicua function results in the ventral ectopic specification of dorsal appendage-producing follicle cell fate. This cell fate change is due in part to the ectopic expression of genes such as mirror and Broad-Complex in capicua mutant ovaries. When either mirror or Broad-Complex are ectopically expressed independently of loss of capicua function, they generate a phenotype similar to the capicua mutant phenotype. We propose that Capicua normally acts in the ventral follicle cells to repress the expression of genes that pattern the dorsal follicle cells. EGF receptor signaling may normally inactivate Capicua repression in the dorsal follicle cells.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.84068 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Rounding Atkey, Matthew |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002268664, proquestno: AAIMR22760, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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