Retinal calcium waves coordinate uniform tissue patterning of the Drosophila eye

Optimal neural processing relies on precise tissue patterning across diverse cell types. Here, we show that spontaneous calcium waves arise among non-neuronal support cells in the developing Drosophila eye to drive retinal morphogenesis. Waves are initiated by Cad96Ca receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, triggering PLCγ-mediated calcium release from the endoplasmic reticulum. A cell-type-specific ‘Innexin-code’ coordinates wave propagation through a defined gap junction network among non-neuronal retinal cells, excluding photoreceptors. Wave intensity scales with ommatidial size, triggering stronger Myosin II-driven apical contractions at interommatidial boundaries in larger ommatidia. This size-dependent mechanism compensates for early boundary irregularities, ensuring uniform ommatidial packing critical for precise optical architecture. Our findings reveal how synchronized calcium signaling among non-neuronal cells orchestrates tissue patterning in the developing nervous system., , , # Retinal calcium waves coordinate uniform tissue patterning of the Drosophila eye Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.1g1jwsv9d](10.5061/dryad.1g1jwsv9d) ## Description of the data and file structure Raw data deposit from manuscript \"Retinal Calcium Waves Coordinate Uniform Tissue Patterning of the Drosophila Eye.\" ## Files and variables ### File: F1.xlsx **Description:**  Raw data for main Fig. 1: **1C**: Retinal calcium activity across pupal retinal development. Each rows indicate individual time point. Column labelings are following. **Time point** : Each time points are 2 min intervals **Avg** : Average of deltaF of whole retinal calcium signal. **SEM** : Standard Error of the Mean of deltaF of whole retinal calcium signal. **n** : Number of retina **Dev Stage (hAPF)** : Developmental stages by hour from pupation **Normalized Ca activity** : Normalized Avg values by average basal line activity. Depicted in Fig. 1C **Normalized SEM** : Normalized Standard Error of the Mean...,