Benny Shilo’s lab

Development of multicellular organisms is dictated by cell-cell interactions mediated by conserved signaling pathways. A key challenge encountered by these pathways is to generate reproducible patterns, despite fluctuations in the doses of the signaling components, which commonly occur due to genetic and environmental alterations.

During the initial stages of Drosophila Indirect Flight Muscle (IFM) development, myoblasts migrate from the wing imaginal disc towards a persistent set of myotubes, with which they fuse.

Some exocrine systems require exertion of active forces to mediate secretory vesicle content release at late stages of exocytosis. A universal feature of such systems is formation of an actin coat around each vesicle, which is thought to facilitate the force necessary to complete the process of vesicle secretion.