Zerknüllt

Zerknüllt (German for "crumpled") is a gene in the Antennapedia complex of Drosophila (fruit flies), where it operates very differently from homologous genes in other organisms.

Zerknüllt codes for a homeoprotein that helps shape the fly's tissue during embryogenesis. In Drosophila, zerknüllt's expression is repressed by dorsal protein. This normally limits its expression to roughly the dorsal 40% of the embryo, where the concentration of dorsal protein is low. Zerknüllt's homologs are hox genes, common to a vast range of organisms evolutionarily very distant from Drosophila, even including mammals. Hox genes are activated by genetic regulation mechanisms that target each gene's effect much more narrowly: to just one segment of the developing embryo, corresponding to the gene's position in the chromosome sequence.[1][2]

Zerknüllt is commonly abbreviated zen.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Jonathan Michael Wyndham Slack. Essential Developmental Biology, 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell (2006). Pages 150, 159.
  2. ↑ Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Molecular and Cell Biology, McGraw-Hill Professional (1996). Page 295.


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