A refutation to \u2018A new A-P compartment boundary and organizer in holometabolous insect wings\u2019

Peter A Lawrence,José F De Celis,José Casal,Ginés Morata

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-42668-y

Abstract

We respond to a recent report by Abbasi and Marcus who present two main findings: first they argue that there is an organiser and a compartment boundary within the posterior compartment of the butterfly wing. Second, they present evidence for a previously undiscovered lineage boundary near wing vein 5 in Drosophila, a boundary that delineates a “far posterior” compartment. Clones of cells were marked with the yellow mutation and they reported that these clones always fail to cross a line close to vein 5 on the Drosophila wing. In our hands yellow proved an unusable marker for clones in the wing blade and therefore we reexamined the matter. We marked clones of cells with multiple wing hairs or forked and found a substantial proportion of these clones cross the proposed lineage boundary near vein 5, in conflict with their findings and conclusion. As internal controls we showed that these same clones respect the other two well established compartment boundaries: the anteroposterior compartment boundary is always respected. The dorsoventral boundary is mostly respected, and is crossed only by clones that are induced early in development, consistent with many reports. We question the validity of Abbasi and Marcus’ conclusions regarding the butterfly wing but present no new data.Arising from: R. Abbasi and J. M. Marcus Sci. Rep. 7, 16337 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16553-5.

Highlights

In many animals, single embryonic cells can be marked by genetic or other methods and their clonal progeny followed and mapped through later development
With the A-P compartment boundary and conclude that the M3 organiser should correspond with a boundary of cell lineage restriction
Abbasi and Marcus have marked clones in Drosophila wings to ask whether a similar lineage boundary may exist in flies

Summary

Introduction

Single embryonic cells can be marked by genetic or other methods and their clonal progeny followed and mapped through later development. Their survey of naturally occurring mosaic butterfly wings (probably of different origins, including gynandromorphs) suggests the existence of a compartmental lineage boundary, that they call F-P for “far posterior”, near to vein M3 quantitative data supporting their conclusion is not presented.

Results

Conclusion