43rd ANNUAL DROSOPHILA RESEARCH CONFERENCE
April 10-14, 2002

PROGRAM AND ABSTRACT VOLUME
Workshop Abstract

1W
Germ band retraction in Drosophila: a new system to study cell-matrix adhesion? F.B. Schöck¹, N. Perrimon^1,2. 1) Dept. Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115; 2) HHMI, HMS, Boston, MA, 02115. (617) 432-7571.

Large-scale movements of epithelial sheets are necessary for many embryonic and regenerative morphogenetic events. During germ band retraction (GBR) the thoracic and abdominal segment boundaries form from anterior to posterior, and the caudal end of the embryo comes to lie at its final posterior position with respect to the eggshell. Here we show with time-lapse recordings that the amnioserosa adheres to the germband via lamellipodia. Lamellipodia formation and amnioserosa adhesion fail in embryos completely lacking betaPS integrin. Further, we show that mutations in the alpha1, 2 laminin gene wing blister and the betaPS integrin myospheroid disrupt GBR. We discuss the relation between the observed cell-matrix adhesion and GBR.