Deadpan Development

Unlike our own eyeballs, fruit fly eyes are made up of hundreds of clusters of light-sensitive cells, known as photoreceptors. Each cluster contains seven photoreceptors in a characteristic pattern: six of these are arranged in a circle with the seventh in the centre (lower panel). Scientists have discovered many genes involved in making sure that the right number of photoreceptors grow in the right places, and one of the most important is called sevenless. As you might guess from the name, fruit flies lacking the sevenless gene only have the six outer photoreceptors and are missing the one in the middle (top panel). There are other interestingly-named genes that play important roles in setting up this pattern, including deadpan and tramtrack. Although our eyes look very different from a fruit fly’s, similar genes are involved in setting up patterns in a human baby’s body as it develops in the womb.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Yannis Emmanuel Mavromatakis and Andrew Tomlinson
• Department of Genetics and Development, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, July 2016