Scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and CSIC report on the formation of the small-diameter respiratory tubes of the fly Drosophila, a process that resembles the development of the finest blood vessels, the capillaries, in mamma. The study has been published in the journal Current Biology, part of the Cell group.

Jordi Casanova, professor at CSIC who heads a developmental biology group at IRB Barcelona, addresses the gene expression that leads to the formation of different parts of an organism. Revealing how respiratory tubes develop in Drosophila is relevant because the genes and mechanisms involved are very similar to those present in the mammalian respiratory and circulatory systems. Capillary formation is tightly linked to the development of tumours since these have the capacity to generate new capillaries to obtain more nutrients, in a process known as angiogenesis. Indeed, one of the strategies under study to prevent tumour growth is to inhibit the formation of these supply routes.

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