Corson, F., Couturier, L., Rouault, H., Mazouni, K., Schweisguth, F. (2017). Self-organized Notch dynamics generate stereotyped sensory organ patterns in Drosophila.  Science 356(6337): eaai7407.

FBrf0235475

Research paper

The emergence of spatial patterns in developing multicellular organisms relies on positional cues and cell-cell communication. Drosophila sensory organs have informed a paradigm in which these operate in two distinct steps: Prepattern factors drive localized proneural activity, then Notch-mediated lateral inhibition singles out neural precursors. Here we show that self-organization through Notch signaling also establishes the proneural stripes that resolve into rows of sensory bristles on the fly thorax. Patterning, initiated by a gradient of Delta ligand expression, progresses through inhibitory signaling between and within stripes. Thus, Notch signaling can support self-organized tissue patterning as a prepattern is transduced by cell-cell interactions into a refined arrangement of cellular fates.