Drosophila Eye Development Modeling

We have developed a Systems Biology methodology for inferring multicellular regulatory models. The methodology was applied to reconstruct a network that governs the development of Drosophila eye. The whole multicellular regulatory model contains thousands of cells that interact with each other via several intercellular signals (such as Hh, Dpp, Sca, Delta, and Spitz). Each individual cell is mathematically represented by a complex cellular regulatory model which contains dozens of molecular components (such as ato, E(Spl), ey, eya, hth, rough, sens, svp, and so on) involving five intracellular signal transduction pathways. The majority of the data samples used in this project are the high-conent images of Dosophila eye imaginal disc, such as this one (click to see) published by Fu and Baker.

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The image below is a snapshot of the Drosophila eye development process simulated by our model

Green: Spi diffusion. Red: ato expression. Blue: sca expression. Click here to download the video (Windows avi format).

Each 'o' denotes a cell. Each "*" is an R8 cell. Each "+" is an R2/R5 cell. Each "triangles" is an R3/R4 cell. Each "diamond" is an R1/R6 cell. The model decides a cell to adopt a particular fate (e.g., R8, R2/R5, R3/R4, or R1/R6) if the corresponding fate marker gene is the only fate marker gene that stablizes at the highest level in that cell.

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Here is another example.

Red: sens diffusion. Green: Erk activation. Blue: ato expression. Click here to download the video (Windows avi format).

Each 'o' denotes a cell. Each "*" is an R8 cell. Each "+" is an R2/R5 cell. Each "triangles" is an R3/R4 cell. Each "diamond" is an R1/R6 cell.

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Let me know if you would like to see expression patterns/dynamics of other genes. A manuscript about this project is being prepared.