Movie: Homeosis in the Fly—a Story of Transdetermination

About the Movie

This is a fourteen-minute movie on the story of transdetermination in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. Using video, labeled diagrams, and an interview with Walter Gehring, it explains the basics of fly development, imaginal discs, the transformation of imaginal discs into adult structures, and the phenomenon of transdetermination, as first discovered by Ernst Hadorn. Transdetermination is an event which causes an embryonic structure to switch its developmental pathway. The transdetermination of a wing disc, for example, can cause it to differentiate into an antenna instead of a wing. The phenomenon of transdetermination and its clear relation to homeotic genes started Dr. Gehring down a long road of investigation into homeotic genes, followed by a return to the puzzle of transdetermination in his work on the eyeless gene, Pax 6 and the development of the eye

Sample Slides from the Movie