Nadine Dobrovolskaia-Zavadskaia and the dawn of developmental genetics.

摘要

In one of the first genetic screens aimed at identifying induced developmental mutants, Nadine Dobrovolskaia-Zavadskaia, working at the Pasteur Laboratory in the 1920s, isolated and characterized a mutation affecting Brachyury, a gene that regulates tail and axial development in the mouse. Dobrovolskaia-Zavadskaia's analysis of Brachyury and other mutations affecting tail development were among the earliest attempts to link gene action with a tissue-specific developmental process in a vertebrate. Her analyses of genes that interacted with Brachyury led to the discovery of the t-haplotype chromosome of mouse. After 70 years, Brachyury and the multiple genes with which it interacts continue to occupy a prominent focus in developmental biology research. A goal of this review is to identify the contributions that Dobrovolskaia-Zavadskaia made to our current thinking about Brachyury and how she helped to shape the dawn of the field of developmental genetics. BioEssays 23:365-371, 2001. Copyright 2001 John Wiley Sons, Inc.