Artificial selection on egg size perturbs early pattern formation in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Pattern formation in Drosophila embryogenesis has been widely investigated as a developmental and evolutionary model of robustness. To ask whether genetic variation for pattern formation is suppressed in this system, artificial selection for divergent egg size was used to challenge the scaling of even-skipped (eve) pattern formation in mitotic cycle 14 (stage 5) embryos of Drosophila melanogaster. Three-dimensional confocal imaging revealed shifts in the allometry of eve pair-rule stripes along both anterior–posterior (A–P) and dorsoventral (D–V) axes as a correlated response to egg size selection, indicating the availability of genetic variation for this buffered trait. Environmental perturbation was not required for the manifestation of this variation. The number of nuclei at the cellula

SUBMITTER: Miles CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2988983 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature