Abstract
The maternal determinants of dorsoventral polarity of the Drosophila embryo are derived from somatic and germ-line components of the egg chamber. During oogenesis, asymmetry seems to be established by a signal transduction process. This process is thought to provide the developing embryo with a ventral signal responsible for determining the embryonic axis. Through a set of interactions that may involve signal transduction and proteolytic cascade events, positional information is generated in the form of a graded distribution of dorsal protein in blastoderm nuclei. Different levels of dorsal protein result in asymmetric expression of zygotic genes that ultimately specify cell fate.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 119-125 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Trends in Genetics |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1991 |
| Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Genetics