Abstract
The study of gene regulation in higher organisms requires the combination of genetic characterization of the loci involved and the molecular description of the process, the same operations, which were successful in microorganisms. The bithorax complex (BX-C) of Drosophila may represent a model system for this study. Several properties of the complex make it interesting. It has a crucial role in the specification of segments, a major develpmental event. Its genetic analysis is well advanced, with well defined genetic variants (both of lack and of excess of function, deletions and duplications). The expression of the bithorax genes is cell autonomous, i.e., we can define phenotypes at the cellular level, even in the mutant conditions which are lethal in entire organisms. The molecular analysis of the gene itself and of its products is now advancing, so that molecular and genetic inferences can be mutually checked. Finally, the complex is specially promising because the genetic and developmental evidence suggests that it is trans-regulated: its activity seems to be controlled by other genes and the BX-C products seem, in turn, to control other genes. The present discussion deals with the question of how these interacting genes are functionally related with the BX-C.
Dedicated to E.B. Lewis, the discoverer of the bithorax gene complex.
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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
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García-Bellido, A. (1982). The Bithorax Syntagma. In: Lakovaara, S. (eds) Advances in Genetics, Development, and Evolution of Drosophila. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8321-9_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8321-9_13
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