Fruit Flies -- A Model for Bodybuilders

(PhysOrg.com) -- The human body operates by a precisely regulated interplay of different cell types such as blood, nerve and muscle cells. Together with colleagues from the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, scientists of the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich, Germany, have now succeeded in identifying all genes of the fruit fly Drosophila that play a role in the development and function of muscles. "It is fascinating how the genetic programme of an organism is able to produce such different cell types out of identical precursor cells," says Frank Schnorrer, group leader at the MPI of Biochemistry. (Nature, March 11th, 2010)

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