Overview
Our laboratory is composed of
scientists carrying out academic
research on the development and
evolution of the patterns of sensory bristles in insects.
We aim to understand the genetic control of the spatial organisation of
bristle patterns in insects. On the notum of Drosophila there is a
stereotyped array of eleven large sensory bristles. Sensory bristle
development requires the activity of the achaete-scute genes whose
products are bHLH-type transcription factors the expression of which
confers neural potential to cells. The bristle pattern arises as the
result of achaete-scute expression in clusters of cells at the site of
each future bristle. These genes share cis-regulatory controlling
sequences, called enhancers, that respond to local positional cues and
regulate the complex spatial and temporal expression patterns of these
genes. Two upstream activators, Pannier and Iroquois, bind to the
enhancer sequences and regulate achaete-scute expression.
There are many thousands of species of Diptera, however, and many of
these have bristle patterns that differ from Drosophila but are equally
stereotyped. The question therefore arises as to how all of these
different patterns are made and to what extent the basic genetic
mechanisms described in Drosophila have been conserved. To study this
we are using molecular and genetic approaches to study the conservation
of the structure and function of achaete-scute homologues and their
upstream regulators in a number of species of Diptera.
- Index
- Overview
- Publications
- People
- Contact
- Useful links
- University of Cambridge
- Department of Zoology
- Hermes webmail
- Talks.cam
- Useful Drosophila resources
- FlyBase
- REDfly
- FlyMine
- BDGP
- FlyTF
- Interactive Fly
- Fly Express
- FlyView
- Fly FISH
- AAA: 12 Drosophila Genomes
- ©
2009 University of Cambridge, Department of Zoology
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Last update March 2010, Jean-Valery Turatsinze - Privacy
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