Gene Cascades in Early Drosophila Development

MicroRNA gene regulation cascades during early stages of plant development.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate various developmental programs of plants. This review focuses on miRNA involvement in early events of plant development, such as seed germination, seedling development and the juvenile to adult phase transition. miR159 and miR160 are involved in the regulation of seed germination through their effects on the sensitivity of seeds to ABA. miR156 and miR172 play critica...

Gene expression cascades in pancreatic development

The specialized endocrine and exocrine cells of the pancreas originally derive from a pool of apparently identical cells in the early gut endoderm. Serial changes in their gene expression program, controlled by a hierarchy of pancreatic transcription factors, direct this progression from multipotent progenitor cell to mature pancreatic cell. When the cells differentiate, this hierarchy of facto...

The segmentation and homeotic gene network in early Drosophila development.

In 1980, Nijsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus reported the first results of a systematic screen of an entire metazoan genome for genes that control a particular set of patternforming events, the segmentation of the fruit fly embryo (Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus, 1980). In total, they described about twenty zygotically active genes (including some that had previously been found in other ways), whic...

Early retinal development in Drosophila.

Expression and function of the Drosophila gene runt in early stages of neural development.

The Drosophila gene runt was initially identified on the basis of its role during segmentation. Recent molecular and genetic studies have demonstrated that the runt gene encodes a novel nuclear protein whose developmental importance is not exclusive to segmentation. This report addresses the functional relevance of runt expression in the developmental pathway of neurogenesis. Antibodies against...