Rho1 activation recapitulates early gastrulation events in the ventral, but not dorsal, epithelium of Drosophila embryos

  1. Ashley Rich
  2. Richard G Fehon
  3. Michael Glotzer  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Chicago, United States

Abstract

Ventral furrow formation, the first step in Drosophila gastrulation, is a well-studied example of tissue morphogenesis. Rho1 is highly active in a subset of ventral cells and is required for this morphogenetic event. However, it is unclear whether spatially patterned Rho1 activity alone is sufficient to recapitulate all aspects of this morphogenetic event, including anisotropic apical constriction and coordinated cell movements. Here, using an optogenetic probe that rapidly and robustly activates Rho1 in Drosophila tissues, we show that Rho1 activity induces ectopic deformations in the dorsal and ventral epithelia of Drosophila embryos. These perturbations reveal substantial differences in how ventral and dorsal cells, both within and outside the zone of Rho1 activation, respond to spatially and temporally identical patterns of Rho1 activation. Our results demonstrate that an asymmetric zone of Rho1 activity is not sufficient to recapitulate ventral furrow formation and reveal that additional, ventral-specific factors contribute to the cell- and tissue-level behaviors that emerge during ventral furrow formation.

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

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Ashley Rich

    Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Richard G Fehon

    Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4889-2602
  3. Michael Glotzer

    Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
    For correspondence
    mglotzer@uchicago.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8723-7232

Funding

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35GM12709)

  • Michael Glotzer

University of Chicago

  • Michael Glotzer

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM085087)

  • Michael Glotzer

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS034783)

  • Richard G Fehon

National Science Foundation (DGE-1144082)

  • Ashley Rich

National Science Foundation (DGE-1746045)

  • Ashley Rich

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

Copyright

© 2020, Rich et al.

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.

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  1. Ashley Rich
  2. Richard G Fehon
  3. Michael Glotzer
(2020)
Rho1 activation recapitulates early gastrulation events in the ventral, but not dorsal, epithelium of Drosophila embryos
eLife 9:e56893.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56893

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56893

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