Protein vertebrate embryos

In the past few years, comparisons between invertebrate and vertebrate systems have led to the conclusion that an astonishing number of regulatory mechanisms in mesoderm development have been evolutionarily conserved. In particular, genes that are homologous to tinman and bagpipe appear to have related roles in heart and visceral muscle development, respectively, in vertebrate embryos (Lyons et al., 1995 Tribioli et al., 1997). Furthermore, the Dpp-related bone morphogenetic proteins... 

Cdx (caudal) family members encode homeodomain transcription factors. The name caudal derives from the essential function of the gene product in the development of the posterior Drosophila embryo, a role that appears generally conserved across species. In vertebrates, Cdx proteins perform essential functions in the trophoblast, intestinal development, posterior specification and vertebral patterning. While this review focuses largely on the function of murine Cdx homologues, a number of relevant findings have been established initially from other systems, and will be briefly discussed. 

We see an example of this effect in the formation of nen-ral cells in vertebrate development. Normally, secreted TGF proteins prevent the formation of neural cells in a part of early frog embryos called the animal cap. In Xenopus embryos, the... 

Seeger et al. (1988) have characterized a gene called amalgam which is widely expressed in the CNS of the Drosophila embryo. The amalgam protein shows amino acid sequence similarity with vertebrate cell adhesion molecules and other molecules of the immunoglobulin superfamily. 

---