Review Questions
- Bicoid is a morphogen that exists only in flies. Can we still learn something from studying a process in such an exotic animal? How would you convince others that your research in flies is important?
- The aim of a majority of the research that is being conducted is to understand human biology. Why then do people use flies, yeast, worms, mice etc to investigate those processes? What is a model organism?
If you had to identify the ideal model organism (for your research) which criteria would you chose?
- What are the advantages of studying a morphogen in fly embryos rather than say mouse embryos?
- How do the early embryonic cell cycles differ from the later ones? How long do they last? Are nuclei separated by cell membranes? What is a syncytium?
- What is the mid blastula transition (MBT)? What events occur at the MBT? When does the genome of the mother matter and when that of the embryo? Can you name one gene that affects development only when mutant in the mother?
- Following cellularisation, cells undergo morphogenetic movements in a stereotyped manner. How is this controlled?
- Wieschaus discusses how spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression are established. Can you summarize the steps leading to that pattern?
- Bicoid is a morphogen. What is the definition of a morphogen? Do you know other morphogens (in other animals)?
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