Abstract
Movement assisted by muscles forms the basis of various behavioural traits seen in Drosophila. Myogenesis involves developmental processes like cellular specification, differentiation, migration, fusion, adherence to tendons and neuronal innervation in a series of coordinated event well defined in body space and time. Gene regulatory networks are switched on-off, fine tuning at the right developmental stage to assist each cellular event. Drosophila is a holometabolous organism that undergoes myogenesis waves at two developmental stages, and is ideal for comparative analysis of the role of genes and genetic pathways conserved across phyla. In this review we have summarized myogenic events from the embryo to adult focussing on the somatic muscle development during the early embryonic stage and then on indirect flight muscles (IFM) formation required for adult life, emphasizing on recent trends of analysing muscle mutants and advances in Drosophila muscle biology.
