Planar polarity and short-range polarization in Drosophila embryos

Planar cell polarity is a common and probably universal feature of epithelial cells throughout their life. It is not only visible in the external parts of adult animals and plants, but also present in newborn cells such as in the primary Drosophila epithelium. It controls not only cell shape and differentiation, but also cell motility, cell shape changes and it directs how animals are shaped. In this review, we report how planar cell polarity arises in Drosophila embryos and thereby illustrate how general and extensive planar polarity is during development, from the very beginning to the end. We present the main features of planar cell polarization in Drosophila embryos, in particular the fact that it occurs over a short range of just a few cell diameters, and within a very short time window. We contrast these with other systems, such as the adult Drosophila wing where planar cell polarity occurs at longer range. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.