Embryonic geometry underlies phenotypic variation in decanalized conditions

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Abstract

During development, many mutations cause increased variation in phenotypic outcomes, a phenomenon termed decanalization. Phenotypic discordance is often observed in the absence of genetic and environmental variations, but the mechanisms underlying such inter-individual phenotypic discordance remain elusive. Here, using the anterior-posterior (AP) patterning of the Drosophila embryo, we identified embryonic geometry as a key factor predetermining patterning outcomes under decanalizing mutations. With the wild-type AP patterning network, we found that AP patterning is robust to variations in embryonic geometry; segmentation gene expression remains reproducible even when the embryo aspect ratio is artificially reduced by more than twofold. In contrast, embryonic geometry is highly predictive of individual patterning defects under decanalized conditions of either increased bicoid (bcd) dosage or bcd knockout. We showed that the phenotypic discordance can be traced back to variations in the gap gene expression, which is rendered sensitive to the geometry of the embryo under mutations.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supplementary files.

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Anqi Huang

Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0551-1160
Jean-François Rupprecht

Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS and Turing Center for Living Systems, Marseille, France

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Timothy E Saunders

Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

For correspondence
dbsste@nus.edu.sg

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5755-0060

Funding

National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF2012NRF-NRFF001-094)

Timothy E Saunders

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.