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Headless flies produced by mutations in the paralogous Pax6 genes eyeless and twin of eyeless

Jesper Kronhamn¹, Erich Frei², Michael Daube², Renjie Jiao^2,, Yandong Shi², Markus Noll^2,* and Åsa Rasmuson-Lestander¹

¹ Division of Genetics, Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden
² Institute for Molecular Biology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
Present address: Institute of Veterinary Biochemistry, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland

*Author for correspondence (e-mail: noll{at}molbio.unizh.ch)

Accepted 15 November 2001

The two Pax6 gene homologs eyeless and twin of eyeless play decisive early roles in Drosophila eye development. Strong mutants of twin of eyeless or of eyeless are headless, which suggests that they are required for the development of all structures derived from eye-antennal discs. The activity of these genes is crucial at the very beginning of eye-antennal development in the primordia of eye-antennal discs when eyeless is first activated by the twin of eyeless gene product. This activation does not strictly depend on the Twin of eyeless protein, but is temperature-dependent in its absence. Twin of eyeless acts also in parallel to the eyeless gene and exerts functions that are partially redundant with those of Eyeless, while Eyeless is mainly required to prevent early cell death and promote eye development in eye-antennal discs.

Key words: Headless flies, Pax6 genes, twin of eyeless, eyeless, Head development, Eye development, Drosophila melanogaster

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