Model of emc effects on Drosophila eye development.
A) Loss of emc allows Da protein to form heterodimers and activate ex transcription, increasing SHW pathway activity. SHW activity reduces DIAP1 expression, thereby derepressing caspase activity. In the eye, non- apoptotic caspase activity increases expression of the Notch ligand Delta. Elevated Delta expression accelerates morphogenetic furrow progression, while cis-inhibiting Notch signaling posterior to the morphogenetic furrow, inhibiting R7 cell specification and cone-cell differentiation. B) Like many proteins, Delta has multiple potential caspase cleavage sites, here predicted suing Cascleave 2.0 (Wang et al., 2014). None are high-confidence predictions and only one is in the intracellular domain where caspase access is plausible (position 675, predicted score 0.647). The intracellular domain is required for Delta signaling. Cleavage at position 675 would remove the main ubiquitylation site required for signaling, as well as the binding site for mindbomb, so is not anticipated to enhance signaling activity (Daskalaki et al., 2011).