Variation in mesoderm specification across Drosophilids is compensated by different rates of myoblast fusion during body wall musculature development.

Background: It has been shown that species separated by relatively short evolutionary distances may have extreme variations in egg size and shape. Those variations are expected to modify the polarized morphogenetic gradients that pattern the dorso-ventral axis of embryos. Currently, little is known about the effects of scaling over the embryonic architecture of organisms.

Gene length may contribute to graded transcriptional responses in the Drosophila embryo.

An important question in developmental biology is how relatively shallow gradients of morphogens can reliably establish a series of distinct transcriptional readouts. Current models emphasize interactions between transcription factors binding in distinct modes to cis-acting sequences of target genes. Another recent idea is that the cis-acting interactions may amplify preexisting biases or prepatterns to establish robust transcriptional responses.

Upright imaging of Drosophila embryos.

Several well-known morphogenetic gradients and cellular movements occur along the dorsal/ventral axis of the Drosophila embryo. However, the current techniques used to view such processes are somewhat limited. The following protocol describes a new technique for mounting fixed and labeled Drosophila embryos for coronal viewing with confocal imaging.

[The advantages of agglutination and precipitation tests used in the serological diagnosis of meningitis due to H. influenza type B].

During the period January 1985-July 1988, 532 purulent CSF taken from patients with meningitis, aged between 3 weeks and 91 years, were studied by microscopic examination, cultivation and for H. influenzae type B (HITB) also by coagglutination (COA), counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIE) and double immunodiffusion (DID) in agarose gel. Positive CSFs were taken from the patients aged 1 month-24 years old, of which 76% from children under 5 years old, and 42% from children under one year.