title: Digital three-dimensional models of Drosophila development.
abstract: Digital models of organs, cells and subcellular structures have become important tools in biological and medical research. Reaching far beyond their traditional widespread use as didactic tools, computer-generated models serve as electronic atlases to identify specific elements in complex patterns, and as analytical tools that reveal relationships between such pattern elements that would remain obscure in two-dimensional sections. Digital models also offer the unique opportunity to store and display gene-expression patterns, and pilot studies have been made in several genetic model organisms, including mouse, Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans, to construct digital graphic databases intended as repositories for gene-expression data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095 USA.
authors.forename: Wayne
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pereanu
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hartenstein
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000166:cytology; D003196:Computer Graphics; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004330:Drosophila / Q000196:embryology*; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D009024:Morphogenesis