Search

From insects to mammals, oocytes and sperm develop within germline cysts comprising cells connected by intercellular bridges (ICBs). In numerous insects, formation of the cyst is accompanied by growth of the fusome—a membranous organelle that permeates the cyst. Fusome composition and function are best understood in Drosophila melanogaster: during oogenesis, the fusome dictates cyst topology and size and facilitates oocyte selection, while during spermatogenesis, the fusome synchronizes the cyst's response to DNA damage. Despite its distinct and sex-specific roles during insect gametogenesis, elucidating fusome growth and inheritance in females and its structure and connectivity in males has remained challenging. Here, we take advantage of advances in three-dimensional (3D) confocal microscopy and computational image processing tools to reconstruct the topology, growth, and distribution of the fusome in both sexes. In females, our experimental findings inform a theoretical model for fusome assembly and inheritance and suggest that oocyte selection proceeds through an 'equivalency with a bias' mechanism. In males, we find that cell divisions can deviate from the maximally branched pattern observed in females, leading to greater topological variability. Our work consolidates existing disjointed experimental observations and contributes a readily generalizable computational approach for quantitative studies of gametogenesis within and across species. Author summary: The ubiquity of germline cysts across animals and accelerating advances in microscopy call for quantitative and highly resolved studies of their developmental dynamics. Here we use Drosophila melanogaster gametogenesis as a model system, alongside a supervised learning algorithm to study a shared organelle that arises during sperm and oocyte development—the fusome. The fusome is a highly specialized membranous organelle that permeates the cyst in both sexes. Our three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of the fusome and quantitative measurements at successive stages of cyst development during oogenesis shed light on the evolution of cell fate asymmetry within the germline cyst in females, where the cyst gives rise to a single oocyte. In males, where each cell of the cyst goes on to form sperm, the fusome fragments and exhibits topologies that deviate from the stereotypic maximally branched topology found in females. Our findings can be interpreted in the context of the divergent outcomes of gametogenesis in both sexes and highlight the centrality of quantitative measurements in evaluating hypotheses in biological sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]