Fruit flies shed light on developmental forces
The fruit fly drosophila has for many years been broadly used as a model system for studying development. Their short life-cycle and the available genetic tools have made the fly an ideal model to approach the complexity of the biological processes involved in an organism's development of shape. Metamorphosis is a major event in the drosophila life-cycle. In this process there is a massive rearrangement of tissues responsible for generating the adult fly from larval tissues. The process is highly dynamic and the fact that the tissues involved are buried inside the larva has made the detailed study of the process difficult. The EU-funded project 'Control of cell shape in the peripodial membrane of the wing disc of Drosophila melanogaster' (Cell Shape, Fly) used a technique that allows in vitro observation of dissected live cells (wing discs) as development occurs: confocal live imaging. The results describe in great cellular detail the complex movements responsible for folding a relatively simple double epithelium sac (the wing discs) into a more complex structure (a wing). Project partners were able to analyse where the forces in the epithelium sac are generated and the cellular responses for different epithelial cells once they are deformed by these forces. The ex vivo model system developed by Cell Shape, Fly also has application in further studies of other developmental processes such as programmed cell death. The culture technique is versatile and could be extended to other tissues allowing live imaging of different processes and thus achieving a deeper understanding of them.
