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Formation of Embryonic Axes and Blastoderm Pattern in Drosophila

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Development

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster is a small dipteran fly that belongs to the group of holometabolous insects. Both the larvae and the adult flies (Fig. 1) live on rotting fruit, and feed mainly on the fungi and bacteria that grow there. vDrosophila was introduced into the genetic laboratory by T.H. Morgan around 1910, because it is easy to grow (generation time 2 weeks with about 300 offsprings per female) and because it displays a wealth of morphological markers that could be exploited for genetic experiments. D. melanogaster quickly became one of the genetically best analyzed organisms. Morgan received the Nobel prize for medicine in 1933 for describing the principles of genetic recombination and for the discovery of chromosomal sex determination. One of his coworkers,H.J. Muller, received the prize in 1946 for discovering the mutagenicity of X-rays. The Drosophila system has since been continuously used for the analysis of many biological questions, ranging from biochemistry to behavioral genetics and evolution. To date the sophistication of the genetic tools available in Drosophila is unparalleled, and this was instrumental in the breakthrough of developmental biology in the 1980s that resulted in another Nobel prize, in 1995, to Edward Lewis, Christiane NiissleinVolhard and Eric Wieschaus for their work on homeosis and embryonic pattern formation.

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Authors
  1. Martin Klingler
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  2. Diethard Tautz
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MPI für Molekulare Genetik, Ihnestraße 73, D-14195, Berlin, Germany

    Vincenzo E. A. Russo

  2. Leeds Institute of Plant Biochemistry and Agriculture, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS29JT, Great Britain

    David J. Cove

  3. Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, 80302, CO, USA

    Lois G. Edgar

  4. Whitehead Institute, Nine Cambridge Center, Cambridge, 02141, MA, USA

    Rudolf Jaenisch

  5. MPI für Züchtungsforschung, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, Köln, D-50829, Germany

    Francesco Salamini

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin · Heidelberg New York

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Klingler, M., Tautz, D. (1999). Formation of Embryonic Axes and Blastoderm Pattern in Drosophila . In: Russo, V.E.A., Cove, D.J., Edgar, L.G., Jaenisch, R., Salamini, F. (eds) Development. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59828-9_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59828-9_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64141-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59828-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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