Initiation of DNA replication at origins more than once per cell cycle results in rereplication and has been implicated in cancer. Here we use Drosophila to examine the checkpoint responses to rereplication in a developmental context. We find that increased Double-parked (Dup), the Drosophila ortholog of Cdt1, results in rereplication and DNA damage. In most cells, this rereplication triggers caspase activation and apoptotic cell death mediated by both p53-dependent and -independent pathways. Elevated Dup also caused DNA damage in endocycling cells, which switch to a G/S cycle during normal development, indicating that rereplication and the endocycling DNA reduplication program are distinct processes. Unexpectedly, however, endocycling cells do not apoptose regardless of tissue type. Our combined evidence suggests that endocycling apoptosis is repressed in part because proapoptotic gene promoters are silenced. Normal endocycling cells had DNA lesions near heterochromatin, which increased after rereplication, explaining why endocycling cells must constantly repress the genotoxic apoptotic response. Our results reveal a novel regulation of apoptosis in development and new insights into the little-understood endocycle. Similar mechanisms may operate during vertebrate development, with implications for cancer predisposition in certain tissues.[Keywords: DNA replication; DNA damage; endocycle; checkpoint; apoptosis] Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org. The timely duplication of the genome during S phase of every cell division cycle requires that DNA replication initiate from thousands of origins. If too few origins initiate, replication forks can collapse, resulting in DNA damage and incomplete replication of the genome. Initiation of DNA replication from origins more than once per cell cycle, however, results in "rereplication" and subsequent DNA damage (Arias and Walter 2007). In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that problems with DNA replication are common in premalignant cells, with subsequent checkpoint defects leading to genome instability and cancer (Dutta 2007). It remains unclear, however, whether all cells in development are equivalent with respect to their regulation of DNA replication and checkpoint responses. Here, we use Drosophila to investigate the checkpoint responses to rereplication in a developmental context. Two important steps in the cell cycle regulation of DNA replication are the assembly and activation of a prereplicative complex (pre-RC) (Sivaprasad et al. 2006). The pre-RC assembles onto origins in early G1 and is subsequently activated in S phase. During pre-RC assembly, the hexameric origin recognition complex (ORC) serves as a scaffold for origin association of Cdc6 and Cdt1, which are both required to load the hexameric minichromosome maintenance complex (MCM), the replicative helicase (Randell et al. 2006;Sivaprasad et al. 2006). Once the MCM complex is tightly bound, the origins are considered to be "licensed" and competent to initiate replic...

Cell-cell fusion is critical for the conception, development and physiology of multicellular organisms. Although cellular fusogenic proteins and the actin cytoskeleton are implicated in cell-cell fusion, whether and how they coordinate to promote plasma membrane fusion remain unclear. Here, we reconstituted a high-efficiency, inducible cell-fusion culture system in the normally non-fusing Drosophila S2R+ cells. Both fusogenic proteins and actin cytoskeletal rearrangements were necessary for cell fusion, and, in combination, were sufficient to impart fusion competence. Localized actin polymerization triggered by specific cell-cell or cell-matrix adhesion molecules propelled invasive cell membrane protrusions, which, in turn, promoted fusogenic protein engagement and plasma membrane fusion. This de novo cell-fusion culture system reveals a general role for actin-propelled invasive membrane protrusions in driving fusogenic protein engagement during cell-cell fusion.

The migrating cranial neural crest cells of birds, fish, and mammals have been shown to form the membranous bones of the cranium and face. These findings have been extrapolated to suggest that all the dermal bones of the vertebrate exoskeleton are derived from the neural crest ectomesenchyme. However, only one group of extant animals, the Chelonians, has an extensive bony exoskeleton in the trunk. We have previously shown that the autapomorphic carapacial and plastron bones of the turtle shell arise from dermal intramembranous ossification. Here, we show that the bones of the plastron stain positively for HNK-1 and PDGFRalpha and are therefore most likely of neural crest origin. This extends the hypothesis of the neural crest origin of the exoskeleton to include the turtle plastron.

The regulation of a pre-replicative complex (pre-RC) at origins ensures that the genome is replicated only once per cell cycle. Cdt1 is an essential component of the pre-RC that is rapidly degraded at G1-S and also inhibited by Geminin (Gem) protein to prevent re-replication. We have previously shown that destruction of the Drosophila homolog of Cdt1, Double-parked (Dup), at G1-S is dependent upon cyclin-E/CDK2 and important to prevent re-replication and cell death. Dup is phosphorylated by cyclin-E/Cdk2, but this direct phosphorylation was not sufficient to explain the rapid destruction of Dup at G1-S. Here, we present evidence that it is DNA replication itself that triggers rapid Dup destruction. We find that a range of defects in DNA replication stabilize Dup protein and that this stabilization is not dependent on ATM/ATR checkpoint kinases. This response to replication stress was cell-type specific, with neuroblast stem cells of the larval brain having the largest increase in Dup protein. Defects at different steps in replication also increased Dup protein during an S-phase-like amplification cell cycle in the ovary, suggesting that Dup stabilization is sensitive to DNA replication and not an indirect consequence of a cell-cycle arrest. Finally, we find that cells with high levels of Dup also have elevated levels of Gem protein. We propose that, in cycling cells, Dup destruction is coupled to DNA replication and that increased levels of Gem balance elevated Dup levels to prevent pre-RC reformation when Dup degradation fails.