Apoptosis in developing Drosophila embryos is rare and confined to specific groups of cells. We explain how one organ, salivary glands, of Drosophila embryos avoids apoptosis. senseless(sens), a Zn-finger transcription factor, is expressed in the salivary primordium and later in the differentiated salivary glands. The regulation of sens expression in the salivary placodes is more complex than observed in the embryonic PNS. We have shown that sensexpression is initiated in the salivary placodes by fork head(fkh), a winged helix transcription factor. The expression of sens is maintained in the salivary glands by fkh and by daughterless (da), a bHLH family member. In this study, we have identified sage, a salivary-specific bHLH protein as a new heterodimeric partner for da protein in the salivary glands. In addition, our data suggest that sage RNAi embryos have a phenotype similar to sens and that sage is necessary to maintain expression of sens in the embryonic salivary glands. Furthermore, we show that in the salivary glands, sens acts as an anti-apoptotic protein by repressing reaper and possibly hid.
Interviews with Biologists @ 100 conference speakers
Explore our interviews with keynote speakers from the Biologists @ 100 conference, hosted to celebrate our publisher’s 100th anniversary, where we discuss climate change and biodiversity with Hans-Otto Pörtner and Jane Francis, health and disease with Charles Swanton and Sadaf Farooqi, and emerging technologies with Manu Prakash and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz.
Call for papers – Lifelong Development: the Maintenance, Regeneration and Plasticity of Tissues
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue – Lifelong Development: the Maintenance, Regeneration and Plasticity of Tissues. This issue will be coordinated by Guest Editors Meritxell Huch (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany) and Mansi Srivastava (Harvard University and Museum of Comparative Zoology, USA), working alongside our team of academic Editors. Submit your articles by 30 May 2025.
A case for broadening our view of mechanism in developmental biology
In this Perspective, B. Duygu Özpolat and colleagues survey researchers on their views on what it takes to infer mechanism in developmental biology. They examine what factors shape our idea of what we mean by ‘mechanism’ and suggest a path forward that embraces a broad outlook on the diversity of studies that advance knowledge in our field.
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