INSCUTEABLE, A NEURAL PRECURSOR GENE OF DROSOPHILA, ENCODES A CANDIDATE FOR A CYTOSKELETON ADAPTER PROTEIN

In Drosophila, neural precursor genes are expressed in neural progenit or cells as the neuroblasts and sense organ mother cells. These genes are thought to control the fate and/or behavior of neural progenitor c ells once their fate decision has been made. We have isolated and char acterized a novel neural precursor gene, inscuteable, whose expression is coincident with sites of cell shape changes or cell and tissue mov ement in the embryo, e.g., neuroblasts, trachea, Malphigian tubules, a nd in pupal wing epithelia. The Inscuteable protein is localized to th e apical submembranous surface of neuroblasts and other cell types and shows certain features common to a family of putative cytoskeletal as sociated proteins. The inscuteable mutant phenotype, together with the se other observations, suggests a possible role for the protein in cyt oskeleton organization. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.