Medium to large defects on the dorsal hand pose a reconstructive challenge following dermatologic surgery. Repairs in this location can be complicated by paucity of adjacent tissue reservoirs, competing tension vectors, thin cutaneous tissue, and superficial tendons vasculature. In such cases, double V-Y island pedicle flap is an effective solution. It preserves function, harnesses local with r...

Collective and directed cell movements are crucial for diverse developmental processes in the animal kingdom, but they are also involved in wound repair and disease. During these processes groups of cells are oriented within the tissue plane, which is referred to as planar cell polarity (PCP). This requires a tight regulation that is in part conducted by the PCP pathway. Although this pathway w...

High baselines of transcription factor activities represent fundamental obstacles to regulated signaling. Here we show that in Drosophila, quenching of basal activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factor activity serves as a prerequisite to its tight spatial and temporal control by the JNK (Jun N-terminal kinase) signaling cascade. Our studies indicate that the novel raw gene product is requi...