The many faces of cell adhesion during Drosophila muscle development

Muscle development involves a series of morphogenetic events including cell fusion, migration and epidermal attachment. At various points in this complex developmental program, regulation of muscle-muscle and muscle-epidermal adhesion is crucial. One of the best-characterised adhesion events is the formation of stable, integrin-based adhesions at the attachment sites formed between the ends of muscles and epidermal cells, but other adhesion mechanisms are involved in earlier stages. Here we review recent work from Drosophila on the role of adhesion during muscle development, situating integrin function within the wider developmental program.