Journal
DEVELOPMENT
Volume 131, Issue 24, Pages 6041-6051Publisher
COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/dev.01527
Keywords
leg myogenesis; tendons; founder cells; Drosophila
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Since Miller's morphological description, the Drosophila leg musculature and its formation has not been revisited. Here, using a set of GFP markers and confocal microscopy, we analyse Drosophila leg muscle development, and describe all the muscles and tendons present in the adult leg. Importantly, we provide for the first time evidence for tendons located internally within leg segments. By visualising muscle and tendon precursors, we demonstrate that leg muscle development is closely associated with the formation of internal tendons. In the third instars discs, in the vicinity of tendon progenitors, some Twist-positive myoblasts start to express the muscle founder cell marker dumbfounded (duf). Slightly later, in the early pupa, epithelial tendon precursors invaginate inside the developing leg segments, giving rise to the internal stringlike tendons. The tendon-associated duf-lacZ-expressing muscle founders are distributed along the invaginating tendon precursors and then fuse with surrounding myoblasts to form syncytial myotubes. At mid-pupation, these myotubes grow towards their epithelial insertion sites, apodemes, and form links between internally located tendons and the leg epithelium. This leads to a stereotyped pattern of multifibre muscles that ensures movement of the adult leg.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available