Drosophila melanogaster embryonic development starts with thirteen nuclear divisions without cytokinesis (syncytial blastoderm), being these divisions among the fastest known for any animal embryonic system. Drosophila syncytial blastoderm relies on maternally encoded gene products, loaded into the egg during oogenesis. After fertilization, and as nuclei enter interphase 14, there is a maternal to zygotic transition … Continue reading Gene Expression and Mitosis