Fruit fly study digs deeper into poorly understood details of forming embryos

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 11:32 in Biology & Nature

Using fruit flies as a model to study embryo formation, scientists report that molecular breakdown of a protein called Bicoid is vital to normal head-to-tail patterning of the insect's offspring. The study shows how Bicoid is targeted for molecular degradation by a newly identified protein the researchers named Fates-shifted (Fsd). Without the interaction between Bicoid and Fsd, fruit fly embryos are improperly formed.

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