Drosophila Embryogenesis - Anterior-posterior Axis Patterning in Drosophila

Anterior-posterior Axis Patterning in Drosophila

One of the best understood examples of pattern formation is the patterning along the future head to tail (antero-posterior) axis of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. There are three fundamental genes that give way to the developmental structure of the fly. The three genes that are involved are: maternal effect genes, segmentation genes, and homeotic genes. The development of Drosophila is particularly well studied, and it is representative of a major class of animals, the insects or insecta. Other multicellular organisms sometimes use similar mechanisms for axis formation, although the relative importance of signal transfer between the earliest cells of many developing organisms is greater than in the example described here.