Circumstantial evidence is accumulating, bit by bit, to convict growth factors and their signalling systems as accomplices in developmental processes. For example, growth factors from cows’ brains turn out to have striking effect on the differentiation of frog embryos and certain developmental mutants in Drosophila turn out to be lesions in genes whose products look a lot like growth factors (dodecaplegic) or their receptors (sevenless). This recently discovered ability to cross taxonomic barriers (often considered the hallmark of ‘important’ molecules) inspires confidence in the general significance of these agents which, for the last twenty years, have principally been denizens of the plastic dish and the sole preserve of mammals.
© 1988 by Company of Biologists
1988
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