Xavier Franch-Marro, scientist at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in collaboration with investigators at the National Institute of Medical Research in London, has published a study that provides new data on the processes that regulate growth during the embryonic development of the fly Drosophila melanogaster. The work has been published in the journal Science Signalling. Cell proliferation and cell fate are crucial processes during the embryonic development of pluricellular organisms. These processes involve morphogens, molecules that distribute through tissues to form concentration gradients and that send signals between cells. Although the first evidence of the implication of these proteins in embryonic development was gathered 100 years ago, their function in these contexts is still not well understood. The authors of this work study the function of the morphogen Wingless in the cell proliferation of the imaginal disc of the Drosophila wing, the larval structure that gives rise to the adult wing.

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