Insect legs all look pretty similar, consisting of proximal, medial and distal regions. Nevertheless, report Herke and co-workers, the regulatory mechanisms that govern leg specification and segmentation in the milkweed bug Oncopeltus fasciatus are more different from those acting in Drosophila melanogaster than expected from simple morphological and molecular comparisons (see p. 27). The researchers use RNAi to show that in O. fasciatus,tiptop is required for the segmentation of the distal leg and to switch appendage identity from antenna to leg. In contrast to D. melanogaster leg specification, Antennapedia (Antp) is not required to specify leg identity in O. fasciatus. However, in both insects Antp controls medial leg segmentation. Based on their results, Herke et al. propose that a tiptop-like activity is a likely component of an ancestral leg specification mechanism and speculate about how insect legs may have evolved from a ground-state appendage.
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.
In preprints
the Node: Have your say
Our community site, the Node, is conducting a user survey about the content and the design of the site. Help us shape the Node's future and thank you for being a part of the Node over the last 15 years.
Social media
