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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Preparation of Developing and Adult Drosophila Brains and Retinae for Live Imaging
Published on: March 16, 2010
Signalling pathways in Drosophila and vertebrate retinal development
1Department of Cell Biology, Emory University School of Medicine, 1648 Pierce Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30033, USA. jkumar@cellbio.emory.edu
Abstract:
The near-catholic conservation of paired box gene 6 (Pax6) and its supporting cast of retinal determination genes throughout the animal kingdom has sparked a scientific war over the evolutionary origins of the eye. The battle pits those who support a polyphyletic history for the eye against those who argue for a common ancestor for all 'seeing' animals. Recent papers have shed light on how eyes in both vertebrates and invertebrates are patterned. New insights into the roles that signal-transduction cascades might have in determining the Drosophila melanogaster eye indicate that, like many developmental processes, eye specification is an inductive process.
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