dachsous and frizzled contribute separately to planar polarity in the Drosophila ventral epidermis.

Cells that comprise tissues often need to coordinate cytoskeletal events to execute morphogenesis properly. For epithelial tissues, some of that coordination is accomplished by polarization of the cells within the plane of the epithelium. Two groups of genes--the Dachsous (Ds) and Frizzled (Fz) systems--play key roles in the establishment and maintenance of such polarity. There has been great progress in uncovering the how these genes work together to produce planar polarity, yet fundamental questions remain unanswered. Here, we study the Drosophila larval ventral epidermis to begin to address several of these questions. We show that ds and fz contribute independently to polarity and that they do so over spatially distinct domains. Furthermore, we find that the requirement for the Ds system changes as field size increases. Lastly, we find that Ds and its putative receptor Fat (Ft) are enriched in distinct patterns in the epithelium during embryonic development.