When communal cell death fails in mutant chimeric flies, epithelial tissue remains in patches (circled) across the wing.
Cellular suicide—known as apoptosis—is necessary during development for sculpting the shape of organs and limbs. Most of the time, individual cell suicides are dotted throughout the tissue, and cell corpses are then cleared away by phagocytosis.
Link et al., however, have now captured by live imaging a mass cellular suicide in flies. Epithelial wing cells died in a wave that swept across the developing wing in a matter of minutes. The dead cells were not phagocytosed but were instead swept into the wing veins, which drain into the body.
The authors hypothesize that a released signaling factor or mechanosensory response propagates the swift en...
