Building proteomic pathways using Drosophila ventral furrow formation as a model.

Ventral furrow formation is the first morphogenetic movement to occur during Drosophila gastrulation causing the internalization of mesodermal precursors. A previous proteomic screen for ventral-specific proteome changes identified a set of about forty "difference-proteins" that spanned many cellular functions. To understand the connections between these disparate proteins, we initiated a pathway-building scheme using cycles of protein expression manipulation and proteome analysis.