Trends in Genetics
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 1988, Pages 74-79
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Review
Sevenless and Drosophila eye development: a tyrosine kinase controls cell fate

https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-9525(88)90044-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Determination of cell fate in the compound eye of Drosophila appears to be controlled by cell-cell interactions. The sevenless gene plays an essential role in the determination of a single photoreceptor cell type (R7). It encodes a transmembrane protein with a cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase domain, as found in some growth factor receptors and the protein products of certain oncogenes. This might suggest that developmental decisions dependent on direct cellular interactions involve signalling mechanisms similar to those induced by diffusible factors such as hormones and growth factors.

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      Analyses with these enhancer trap lines revealed that knockdown of dNF-YA specifically inhibited the differentiation of R7 photoreceptor cells [15]. Differentiation of R7 is regulated by the sevenless (sev) gene encoding a receptor tyrosine kinase, a component of the ERK pathway [16]. The rough eye phenotype and loss of R7 signals in the dNF-YA-knockdown flies were rescued by expression of the sev gene, or the Drosophila raf gene, a downstream component of the ERK pathway [15].

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