In: Biology
Explain how the head-tail axis is established during early embryonal development in the fruit fly Drosophila.
The embryo is shown in side view and in cross section.Above is the relationship between the dorsoventral subdivision into future major tissue types and the anteroposterior pattern of future segments. A heavy line covers the region that will form segmental structures. During gastrulation the cells align the ventral midline invaginate to form mesoderm, while the cells fated to forms the gut invaginate near each end of the embryo.
As gastrulation nears completion, a series of indentations and bulges appear in the surface of the embryo, indicating the subdivision of the body into segments along its anteroposterior axis. Soon a fully segmented larva emerges, ready to start eating and growing. Within the body of the larva, small groups of cells remain dormant and undifferentiated, forming structures called imaginal discs. These will grow as the larva grows, and naturally they will give rise to most of the structures of the adult body, as we shall see later.
A head end and a tail end, a ventral (belly) side and a dorsal (back) side, a gut, a nervous system, a series of body segments.These are all features of the basic body plan that Drosophila shares with many other animals, including ourselves.
The embryos are seen in side view in drawings (A-C) and corresponding scanning electron micrographs (D-F).