Thesis Committee: Glenn Edwards, Dan Kiehart (Biology Department), Ronen Plesser, Calvin Howell (exofficio non-voting member)
ABSTRACT: In this project the morphogenetic process of dorsal closure in Drosophila embryos, both wild type and myospheroid mutants, was investigated. The focus of this study was on the geometric parameters of dorsal closure. Specifically, the authors looked at height, width, length of the purse strings, zipping at the canthi, angle of canthi, area, and their rates with respect to time. They found that the dynamic geometry of closure in the myospheroid mutant is distinct from that of wild type embryos. The mutants exhibit wild type geometry during the early stages of the process but then adopt a peculiar geometry, which they have described as cigar-shaped. Characteristic of this mutant phenotype are a notable decrease in curvature, maintenance of a wide angle at the canthi, and a drastic decrease in zipping rate.
Here is the thesis in PDF: fboschini_thesis.pdf (about 31.2 MBytes)