Gene expression dynamics during embryonic development

The ability of cells to generate complex gene expression patterns is fundamental to multicellular life.  While global mRNA levels can now be routinely determined using 'omics technologies, a major gap in our knowledge is how a cell produces these mRNA levels with the correct temporal dynamics.  It is also difficult to study the fate of mRNAs, in terms of their translatability and stability.  We are exploiting the tractability of Drosophila and using live imaging and computational modelling approaches to study the spatiotemporal regulation of gene expression during embryonic development.  I will present our recent data revealing how transcription of key developmental target genes is regulated at single cell resolution.  I will also show how studying translation at single mRNA resolution is providing new insights into the developmental regulation of translation during development.