The expression patterns of regulatory genes involved in the formation of the eye in Drosophila and vertebrates during early development were analyzed comparatively. The results demonstrated that, although the compound eyes of invertebrates and the camera eyes of vertebrates markedly differ in their structure and development, they exhibit a striking similarity at the molecular level. This similarity manifests itself in the fact that the homologous regulatory genes ey/Pax, eya/Eya, dac/Dac, and so/Six, which control the early stages of eye development, are expressed in both groups.
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