Background: Although there are several reports of paralysis developing after aggravation of the deformities of congenital kyphosis or kyphoscoliosis, the onset of myelopathy in middle-aged patients is rare. Objective: To describe a case of late onset thoracic myelopathy in a patient with anterolateral fused vertebrae. The progression of kyphoscoliosis in this middle-aged patient preceded the on...

In a recent paper, Houchmandzadeh [Phys. Rev. E 72, 061920 (2005)] introduce a correlated bigradient model in order to explain the robust scaling of the boundary of hunchback (hb) expression in the early Drosophila embryo. In particular, they stress that recent experiments by Lucchetta [Nature (London) 434, 1134 (2005)], where embryos whose anterior and posterior halves develop at different tem...

The maternal determinant Bicoid (Bcd) represents the paradigm of a morphogen that provides positional information for pattern formation. However, as bicoid seems to be a recently acquired gene in flies, the question was raised as to how embryonic patterning is achieved in organisms with more ancestral modes of development. Because the phylogenetically conserved Hunchback (Hb) protein had previo...

A remarkable feature of development is its reproducibility, the ability to correct embryo-to-embryo variations and instruct precise patterning. In Drosophila, embryonic patterning along the anterior-posterior axis is controlled by the morphogen gradient Bicoid (Bcd). In this article, we describe quantitative studies of the native Bcd gradient and its target Hunchback (Hb). We show that the nati...

The authors present what appears to be the first case of congenital kyphosis due to a T12 hemivertebra in a four-year-old boy with endochondral gigantism syndrome of unknown origin. Because of his overgrowth, the patient had severe medical and orthopaedic problems and was almost immobile. Prior to surgery, he experienced a rapidly progressive thoracolumbar kyphosis to 600 (T10-L2). MRI of the b...

A well-appreciated general feature of development is the ability to achieve a normal outcome despite the inevitable variability at molecular, genetic, or environmental levels. But it is not well understood how changes in a global factor such as temperature bring about specific challenges to a developmental system in molecular terms. Here we address this question using early Drosophila embryos w...

Congenital scoliosis is an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine, resulting from disruption of normal vertebral development. Although there are many types of defects observed in congenital scoliosis, all result from abnormal formation and segmentation of the vertebral precursors, called somites. Developmental studies in animal models have identified many genes regulating somite formation and ...