By stage 10 Mago is once again no longer detectable at the posterior pole. Mago protein is also detected in the somatic follicle cell nuclei. Drosophila axis formation requires a series of inductive interactions between the oocyte and the somatic follicle cells. Early in oogenesis, Gurken protein is produced in the posterior part of the oocyte to induce the adjacent posterior follicle cells to adopt a posterior cell fate. These cells subsequently send an unidentified signal back to the oocyte to induce the formation of a polarised microtubule array that defines the anterior-posterior axis.
Several questions remain.
Finally, Mago appears to play a direct role in the assembly of the pole plasm and has zygotic roles that are only hinted at in the literature. The untranslated region of the 1.1 kb transcript contains three AUUA sites not included in the 0.7 kb transcript. Transcript lengths - 1.1 kb and 0.7 kb differing in the length of the 3' terminus. The Mago protein is slightly acidic and contains a high percentage of charged residues. The C-terminus is hydrophobic.