Is hunchback a maternal effect gene?

Bicoid and Hunchback are the maternal effect genes that are most important for patterning of anterior parts (head and thorax) of the Drosophila embryo. Nanos and Caudal are maternal effect genes that are important in the formation of more posterior abdominal segments of the Drosophila embryo.

Which gene helps establish the anterior-posterior axis in a Drosophila embryo?

Gap genes
The Gap genes: Gap genes participate in early patterning along the anterior-posterior axis of Drosophila embryos. These zygotically transcribed genes, including hunchback, Krüppel, knirps and giant, are expressed in specific spatial domains within 2 hours AEL, just before the cellular blastoderm stage.

What is anterior-posterior patterning?

anterior/posterior pattern formation. Definition: The regionalization process in which specific areas of cell differentiation are determined along the anterior-posterior axis. The anterior-posterior axis is defined by a line that runs from the head or mouth of an organism to the tail or opposite end of the organism.

Which genes determine anterior-posterior axis of Drosophila?

Two genes, exuperantia and swallow, are responsible for keeping the bicoid message at the anterior pole of the egg. In their absence, the bicoid message diffuses farther into the posterior of the egg, and the gradient of Bicoid protein is less steep (Driever and Nüsslein-Volhard 1988a).

What are the gap genes in Drosophila?

Drosophila “gap” genes provide the first response to maternal gradients in the early fly embryo. Gap genes are expressed in a series of broad bands across the embryo during first hours of development.

What does hunchback gene do in Drosophila?

Hunchback is a bifunctional transcription factor that can activate and repress gene expression in Drosophila development. This study investigated the regulatory DNA sequence features that control Hunchback function by perturbing enhancers for one of its target genes, even-skipped (eve).

How is anterior-posterior axis formed Drosophila?

The Drosophila melanogaster anterior–posterior axis is established during oogenesis by the localization of bicoid and oskar mRNAs to the anterior and posterior poles of the oocyte.

What is the anterior-posterior axis?

The anterior-posterior axis is defined by a line that runs from the head or mouth of an organism to the tail or opposite end of the organism.

Which genes are central to patterning the axis from posterior to anterior?

Regulation of the Hox genes in posterior patterning In vertebrates, the Hox proteins are expressed in all but the most anterior regions of the embryo. Within the posterior body, the Hox genes provide the major positional information along the AP axis.

What is anterior-posterior axis?

Which class of genes initially establishes the anterior-posterior axis of body plan?

Hox genes play an important role in forming the anterior-posterior body axis pattern in the early developmental stage of animals and can be divided into anterior, medial and posterior orthologous groups. Each group has specific conserved residues which are shared across bilateral phyla (Papillon et al., 2003).

Which is a function of gap genes in Drosophila?

The gap gene system controls the early cascade of the segmentation pathway in Drosophila melanogaster as well as other insects. Owing to its tractability and key role in embryo patterning, this system has been the focus for both computational modelers and experimentalists.

How is the anterior-posterior axis of the melanogaster established?

The Drosophila melanogaster anterior–posterior axis is established during oogenesis by the localization of bicoid and oskar mRNAs to the anterior and posterior poles of the oocyte.

How are anterior-posterior polarity patterns formed in Drosophila?

Generalized model of Drosophila anterior-posterior pattern formation. (A) The pattern is established by maternal effect genes that form gradients and regions of morphogenetic proteins. These morphogenetic determinants create a gradient of Hunchback protein (more…)

How is the anterior-posterior axis of the embryo specified?

The anterior-posterior axis of the embryo is therefore specified by three sets of genes: those that define the anterior organizing center, those that define the posterior organizing center, and those that define the terminal boundary region.

How are pair rule genes related to anterior posterior polarity?

Differing concentrations of the gap gene proteins cause the transcription of pair-rule genes, which divide the embryo into periodic units. The transcription of the different pair-rule genes results in a striped pattern of seven vertical bands perpendicular to the anterior-posterior axis.