Expression data from transdetermined Drosophila eye antennal imaginal disc by vestigial and simjang overexpression.

Drosophila imaginal disc cells exhibit a remarkable ability to switch cell fates under various perturbations, a phenomenon known as transdetermination (TD). The process of cell reprogramming seems to be regulated in stochastic manners. Ectopic expression of the master transcription factor of wing identity, vestigial, in eye progenitor cells induces eye-to-wing TD, but the frequency of the TD is low. We found that the overexpression of simjang gene dramatically enhanced eye-to-wing TD frequency. Gene network controlling this process, however, is largely unclear. We used microarray to detail the global gene network underlying simj-mediated facilitation of eye-to-wing TD. Third instar larval eye imaginal discs were dissected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarray. Flies from each genotype were used (I: eyeless-Gal4; UAS-lacZ, UAS-lacZ, II: ey-GAL4; UAS-lacZ, UAS-simj, III: ey-Gal4; UAS-vg, UAS-lacZ, IV: ey-Gal4 UAS-vg; UAS-simj. Two biologic replicates were obtained for each.