PERSPECTIVES ON EYE DEVELOPMENT

The lens of the vertebrate eye was the classic model used to demonstra te the concepts of inductive interactions controlling development. How ever, ii is in the Drosophila model that the greatest progress in unde rstanding molecular mechanisms of eye development have most recently b een made. This progress can be attributed to the power of molecular ge netics, an approach that was once confined to simpler systems like wor ms and flies, but is now becoming possible in vertebrates. Thus, the u se of transgenic and knock-out gene technology, coupled with the avail ability of new positional cloning methods, has recently initiated a su rge of progress in the mouse genetic model and has also red to the ide ntification of genes involved in human inherited disorders. In additio n, gene transfer techniques have opened up opportunities for progress using chick, Xenopus, and other classic developmental systems. Finally , a new vertebrate genetic model, zebrafish, appears very promising fo r molecular studies. As a result of the opportunities presented by the se new approaches, eye development has come into the limelight, hence the timeliness of this focus issue of Developmental Genetics. In this introductory review, we discuss three areas of current work arising th rough the use of these newer genetic approaches, and pertinent io rese arch articles presented herein. We also touch on related studies repor ted at the first Keystone Meeting on Ocular Cell and Molecular Biology , recently held in Tamarron Springs, Colorado, January 7-12, 1997. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.