HH Pathway of Drosophila Signaling Pathways

A limited number of signalling pathways are involved in the specification of cell fate during the development of all animals. Several of these pathways were originally identified in Drosophila. To clarify their roles, and possible cross-talk, we have built a logical model for the nine key signalling pathways recurrently used in metazoan development. In each case, we considered the associated ligands, receptors, signal transducers, modulators, and transcription factors reported in the literature. Implemented using the logical modelling software GINsim, the resulting models qualitatively recapitulate the main characteristics of each pathway, in wild type as well as in various mutant situations (e.g. loss-of-function or gain-of-function). These models constitute pluggable modules that can be used to assemble comprehensive models of complex developmental processes. Moreover, these models of Drosophila pathways could serve as scaffolds for more complicated models of orthologous mammalian pathways. Comprehensive model annotations and GINsim files are provided for each of the nine considered pathways.

所有动物的发育过程中，仅有限数量的信号通路参与细胞命运特化。其中多条通路最初是在果蝇（Drosophila）中被发现的。为阐明这些通路的功能及其潜在的交叉对话机制，我们针对后生动物发育中反复使用的9条关键信号通路构建了逻辑模型。针对每条通路，我们均参考已发表文献，纳入了相关配体、受体、信号转导分子、调控因子及转录因子。本研究使用逻辑建模软件GINsim实现模型构建，所得模型可定性复现每条通路在野生型及各类突变情境（如功能丧失或功能获得突变）下的核心特征。这些模型可作为可插拔模块，用于组装复杂发育过程的综合模型。此外，这些果蝇信号通路模型可作为模板，用于构建对应哺乳动物同源通路的更复杂模型。本研究为所纳入的9条通路均提供了完整的模型注释文件及GINsim模型文件。