Notch (N) activation at the dorsoventral (DV) boundary of the Drosophila eye is required for early eye primordium growth. Despite the apparent DV mirror symmetry, some mutations cause a preferential loss of the ventral domain, suggesting that the growth of individual domains is asymmetrically regulated. We show that the Lobe (L) gene is required non-autonomously for ventral growth but not dorsal growth, and that it mediates the proliferative effect of midline N signaling in a ventral-specific manner. L encodes a novel protein with a conserved domain. Loss of L suppresses the overproliferation phenotype of constitutive N activation in the ventral, but not in the dorsal eye, and gain of L rescues ventral tissue loss in N mutant background. Furthermore, L is necessary and sufficient for the ventral expression of a N ligand, Serrate (Ser), which affects ventral growth. Our data suggest that the control of ventral Ser expression by L represents a molecular mechanism that governs asymmetrical eye growth.
Lobe mediates Notch signaling to control domain-specific growth in the Drosophila eye disc
Joshua J. Chern, Kwang-Wook Choi; Lobe mediates Notch signaling to control domain-specific growth in the Drosophila eye disc. Development 1 September 2002; 129 (17): 4005–4013. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.129.17.4005
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