wingless refines its own expression domain on the Drosophila wing margin

THE imaginal discs of Drosophila, which give rise to the adult appendages, are patterned during a period of intense cell proliferation. The specification of differing regions occurs in some cases by subdividing the disc epithelium into lineage compart-ments1. However, in most cases precise boundaries are formed between different cell types without early compartmentalization2. One such boundary occurs between the wingless (wg)-expressing cells of the wing margin and the adjacent proneural cells, which give rise to margin sensory bristles. Here we show that this boundary arises in part by a mechanism of 'self-refinement', by which wingless protein (Wg) represses wg expression in adjacent cells. Cells unable to receive the Wg signal do not resolve the boundary between H>g-expressing and proneural cells.