Moth fly embryo (IMAGE)

University of Chicago

Moth fly embryo

Caption

Flies (Diptera) have evolved many kinds of anterior determinants to specify the primary body axis but so far only the mechanism of action of one, Bicoid, has been characterized in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Ezra Amiri, Muzi Li, Shelby Blythe, Urs Schmidt-Ott and co-workers find that the anterior determinant of the moth fly Clogmia albipunctata, which is encoded by the zic family member odd-paired, initiates anterior patterning by opening chromatin and activating transcription at Clogmia’s homeobrain (blue) and sloppy-paired(purple and yellow) loci.

Credit

Maxwell Devine

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