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Nature 433, 466-467 (3 February 2005) | doi:10.1038/433466a; Published online 2 February 2005

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Evolutionary developmental biology:  How and why to spot fly wings

Paul M. Brakefield1 & Vernon French2

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How can different species evolve different physical features despite using similar molecular toolkits? Studies of wing colour development in fruitflies point to specific changes in a gene's regulatory region.

Over the past two decades, comparative studies have shown that the development of even widely disparate organisms uses a surprisingly similar set of mechanisms. The process of development is controlled largely by where and when key genes are switched on or off — events that are in turn determined by the binding of available proteins (transcription factors) to the genes' regulatory regions.

  1. Paul M. Brakefield is at the Institute of Biology, Leiden University, PO Box 9516, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
    e-mail: Email: brakefield@rulsfb.leidenuniv.nl
  2. Vernon French is at the Division of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.
    e-mail: Email: vernon.french@ed.ac.uk

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