The Drosophila melanogaster eye has been instrumental for determining both how cells communicate with one another to determine cell fate, as well as cell morphogenesis and patterning. Here, we describe the effects of the small GTPase Rap1 on the development of multiple cell types in the D. melanogaster eye. Although Rap1 has previously been linked to RTK-Ras-MAPK signaling in eye development, we demonstrate that manipulation of Rap1 activity is modified by increase or decrease of Delta/Notch signaling during several events of cell fate specification in eye development. In addition, we demonstrate that manipulating Rap1 function either in primary pigment cells or in interommatidial cells affects cone cell contact switching, primary pigment cell enwrapment of the ommatidial cluster, and sorting of secondary and tertiary pigment cells. These data suggest that Rap1 has roles in both ommatidial cell recruitment/survival and in ommatidial morphogenesis in the pupal stage. They lay groundwork for future experiments on the role of Rap1 in these events.

果蝇的眼睛对于确定细胞如何相互通信以决定细胞命运以及细胞形态发生和模式发挥了重要作用。在这里，我们描述了小 GTPase Rap1 对黑腹果蝇眼中多种细胞类型发育的影响。尽管Rap1之前已被认为与眼睛发育中的RTK-Ras-MAPK信号传导有关，但我们证明，在眼睛发育中细胞命运规范的几个事件期间，Rap1活性的操纵是通过增加或减少Delta/Notch信号传导来改变的。此外，我们证明在初级色素细胞或小眼间细胞中操纵 Rap1 功能会影响视锥细胞接触切换、小眼簇的初级色素细胞包裹以及二级和三级色素细胞的分类。这些数据表明 Rap1 在小眼细胞募集/存活和蛹期小眼形态发生中发挥作用。他们为未来研究 Rap1 在这些事件中的作用的实验奠定了基础。