From grasshopper to Drosophila: a common plan for neuronal development

Abstract

Little is known about the mechanisms that generate neuronal specificity during development. Whereas the grasshopper embryo has been an ideal system for a cellular analysis of neuronal development, the Drosophila embryo has obvious attributes for a molecular genetic analysis. Here we show that the early Drosophila embryo is a miniature replica of the grasshopper embryo in terms of its identified neurones, their growth cones and their selective fasciculation choices, thus opening the way for a combined cellular and molecular genetic analysis of cell recognition during neuronal development in Drosophila.