Oogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster: a model system for studying cell differentiation and development

Drosophila oogenesis is a complex developmental process involving the coordinated differentiation of germ line and somatic cells. Correct execution and timing of cell fate specification and patterning events is achieved during this process by the integration of different cell-cell signalling pathways, eventually leading to the generation of positional information inside the oocyte, that is instrumental for the establishment of embryonic polarity. The large body of data accumulated at both cellular and molecular levels in the last decade clearly demonstrated how Drosophila oogenesis is a genetically tractable system particularly suited for the investigation of key developmental biology questions. Our recent contribution to the field relies on the characterisation of three different mutants named tegamino (teg), hold hup (hup) and tulipano (tip), identifying novel gene functions required during oogenesis. Specifically, teg is implicated in the morphogenesis of the follicular epithelium surrounding the germ line cells in the egg chamber, hup is involved in the establishment of egg chamber polarity and tip in the regulation of the dynamic germ cell chromatin organisation.