Regulation and function of the Hox gene Ultrabithorax in the late embryonic central nervous system of Drosophila

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The central nervous system represents the organ with the highest degree of complexity and cell diversity, as here diverse regional requirements for control of locomotion, feeding, respiration and reproduction need to be fulfilled. Understanding how this morphological and functional diversity arises during development is one of the fundamental challenges in biology. Homeotic genes encode one important class of transcription factors that regulate cell diversity along the anterior-posterior body axis. However, molecular mechanisms regulating homeotic gene expression in the nervous system, and the functions that these genes exert during development of the nervous system are largely unknown. The fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster is a widely used model organism for research in developmental biology. In the proposed project, regulation and function of the homeotic gene Ultrabithorax in the Drosophila embryonic central nervous system development will be investigated. The differences between the most important variants of the Ultrabithorax protein will be examined, looking both at how the different variants are generated and at the functional differences between them.