Fringe boundaries coincide with Notch-dependent patterning centres in mammals and alter Notch-dependent development in Drosophila

In both vertebrate and invertebrate development, cells are often programmed to adopt fates distinct from their neighbors. Genetic analyses in Drosophila melanogaster have highlighted the importance of cell surface and secreted proteins in these cell fate decisions. Homologues of these proteins have been identified and shown to play similar roles in vertebrate development1–5. Fringe, a novel signalling protein, has been shown to induce wing margin formation in Drosophila6. Fringe shares significant sequence homology and predicted secondary structure similarity with bacterial glycosyltransferases7. Thus, fringe may control wing development by altering glycosylation of cell surface and/or secreted molecules. Recently, two fringe genes were isolated from Xenopus laevis8. We report here the cloning and characterization of three murine fringe genes (lunatic fringe, manic fringe and radical fringe). We find in several tissues that fringe expression boundaries coincide with Notch-dependent patterning centres and with Notch-ligand expression boundaries. Ectopic expression of murine manic fringe or radical fringe in Drosophila results in phenotypes that resemble those seen in Notch mutants.