A new paper in PLOS Genetics!
We (and others) previously observed that the secreted Wingless ligand spreads extracellularly in the fly ovary, ~50 µm away from the cells that secrete it, and when we compromised the Wg gradient by altering Dlp levels, egg formation was disrupted. However, it has also been proposed that Wg does not spread, but rather signals in a juxtacrine manner from one cell to its neighboring cell. In our recent paper, ‘Extracellular spreading of Wingless is required for Drosophila oogenesis’, we tethered Wg to the cells that secrete it, and found that somatic stem cell proliferation and fertility were both strongly diminished, supporting the model that Wg spreading is important for oogenesis.
