Allocation of the thoracic imaginal primordia in the Drosophila embryo.

The primordia of the thoracic imaginal discs of the Drosophila embryo originate as groups of cells spanning the parasegment boundary. We present evidence that the thoracic imaginal primordia are allocated in response to signals from the wingless (wg) and decapentaplegic (dpp) gene products. Rows of cells that express wg intersect rows of cells that express dpp to form a ladder-like pattern in the ectoderm of the germ band extended embryo. The imaginal primordia originate as groups of cells which lie near these intersection points. We have used a molecular probe derived from the Distal-less (Dll) gene to show that this population contains progenitor cells for both the dorsal (i.e. wing) and ventral (i.e. leg) discs. Although we show that Dll function is not required for allocation of imaginal cells, activation of an early Dll enhancer may serve as a molecular marker for allocation. A group of cells, which includes the imaginal progenitors, activate this enhancer in response to intercellular signals from wg and perhaps from dpp. We have used a conditional allele of wg to show that wg function is transiently required for both allocation of the imaginal primordia and for initiation of Dll expression in these cells during the brief interval when wg and dpp form the ladder-like pattern. Allocation of the imaginal primordium and activation of Dll expression appear to be parallel responses to a single set of positional cues.