The vestigial Quadrant Enhancer is dispensable for pattern formation and development of the Drosophila wing

In Drosophila , the pattern of the wing selector gene, vestigial ( vg ), is established by at least two enhancers: the Boundary Enhancer, which drives expression along the disc’s Dorsal-Ventral boundary; and the Quadrant Enhancer (QE) that patterns the rest of the wing pouch. Using CRISPR/Cas9 editing, we deleted DNA fragments around the reported QE sequence and found that the full Vg pattern is formed. Furthermore, adult wings arising from these gene-edited animals are normal in shape and pattern, but slightly smaller in size, although this reduction is not wing-specific in males. We suggest that other enhancers act redundantly to establish the vg pattern and rescue wing development.