Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences REVIEW The gap gene network

By Johannes Jaeger

285 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Gap genes are involved in segment determination during the early development of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as well as in other insects. This review attempts to synthesize the current knowledge of the gap gene network through a comprehensive survey of the experimental literature. I focus on genetic and molecular evidence, which provides us with an almost-complete picture of the regulatory interactions responsible for trunk gap gene expression. I discuss the regulatory mechanisms involved, and highlight the remaining ambiguities and gaps in the evidence. This is followed by a brief discussion of molecular regulatory mechanisms for transcriptional regulation, as well as precision and size-regulation provided by the system. Finally, I discuss evidence on the evolution of gap gene expression from species other than Drosophila. My survey concludes that studies of the gap gene system continue to reveal interesting and important new insights into the role of gene regulatory networks in development and evolution.

Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology

Citations in the corpus

• Extensive cross-regulation of post-transcriptional regulatory networks in Drosophila (2015, unknown): “Similarpatterns havebeenobservedamongtranscription factors acting in the same pathway, for example, global cross-regulation within the gap gene network (Jaeger 2011).”