Homeotic genes are defined as a gene, mutations in which result in the transformation of one body part into another.
HOMEOTIC GENES
Homeotic genes are defined as a gene, mutations in which result in the transformation of one body part into another. Studies in this field of science have steadily progressed in the last 50 years. Scientists discovered the existence of genes that determine body plans by analysing bizarre aberrations in the body form that resulted from mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila Melanogater.
Studies began by a pair of scientist’s Christiane Nsslein-Volhard and Eric. F. Wieschaus. They identified and classified 15 genes of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments of the fruit fly Drosophila. However, the main research and findings was completed by a scientist called Edward Lewis in 1946 at the California Institute of Technology. Lewis conducted work concerning Drosophila fly development, - How the genes causing them co-operate during body segmentation. His research on the genetic basis for so-called homeotic transformations during embryonic development was the now famous Drosophila-mutant with legs in the place of antennae. He found that homeotic genes control specialisation of the segments. In the mutant case, inactivity of the first gene in a complex of homeotic genes (antennapeadia gene) caused other homeotic genes to duplicate and therefore transform antennae structures (normally in the head) into leg structures. The diagram below (fig 1) shows the Drosophila fly, one being the wild type and the other carrying a homeotic gene:
