Fusome as a Cell-Cell Communication Channel of Drosophila Ovarian Cyst
Résumé
In most animal species, female and male gametes are produced within clusters of germ cells which share a common cytoplasm through cell-cell channels. In Drosophila ovaries, these cells synchronise their divisions and specialise one cell of the cluster as the future egg. Both processes are organised by a germline-specific organelle of communication called the fusome. Until recently, the fusome has remained largely mysterious despite a hundred years of research on its composition, formation and functions. Novel results have now suggested several molecular mechanisms to explain how the fusome synchronises the divisions by controlling cell-cycle regulators and how it determines and polarises the future egg by organising the microtubule cytoskeleton. Importantly, a structure similar to the fusome has been identified during Xenopus oogenesis, suggesting that it is widely conserved from invertebrates to vertebrates, and that it thus serves an essential function.
Domaines
Interactions cellulaires [q-bio.CB]
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