The same family of transcription factors directs the repair of epidermal wounds in mice and flies, two research teams report in this week's
"Until now, there was no reason to suspect common genetic control pathways in the repair of mammal skin and insect cuticle, because the proteins they are built with are completely different," coauthor William McGinnis of the University of California at San Diego told
Little was known about the signaling pathways that direct repair of the surface epithelium, McGinnis said. He and his colleagues investigated the genes
Using in situ hybridization, the researchers found