Epithelial tissues are crucial in the development of all animals; however, only very little is known regarding the genetic network that underlies the formation of these tissues. The Drosophila oogenesis system is a superb model to study epithelium development and, on page 2736, Veit Riechmann and colleagues perform the first genome-wide in vivo RNA interference (RNAi) screen in this system to identify the genes that control epithelial formation and proliferation. They find over 1100 genes with defined functions in epithelial development that can be phenotypically categorised into five groups. To validate their screen, the authors chose to further characterise the still poorly understood process that determinates the number of cells that form the stalks between two follicles. Through mutational analysis of the Drosophila homolog of Vps60, a component of the endosomal sorting complexes required for transport (ESCRT), they show that ESCRTs regulate proliferation in the germarium, a part of...

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