NEURONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE DROSOPHILA RETINA

Nervous systems of higher organisms are comprised of a variety of cell types which are interconnected in a precise manner. The molecular mec hanisms that lead to the specification of neuronal cell types are not well understood. The compound eye of the fruit fly Drosophila is an at tractive experimental system to understand these mechanisms. The compo und eye is a reiterated neural pattern with several hundred unit struc tures and is amenable to both classical and molecular genetic methods. During the development of the compound eye cell-cell interactions and positional information play a critical role in the determination of c ell fate. Recent genetic and molecular studies have provided important clues regarding the nature of the molecules involved in cellular sign alling and neuronal differentiation.