Most of the posterior gut regions fail to form in tllg mutants.
Primordial germ cells exit the gut primordium normally in mutant embryos.
hkbA, tllg double mutants show the same pattern of expression of a bcd promoter fragment-lacZ fusion gene as wild type, ruling out the involvement of hkb and tll products in setting its pattern of expression.
The posterior domain of gt never properly matures resulting in a shift of the fate map. The anterior domain of gt is not affected. In hkb2 tllg double mutant embryos the posterior border of gt stripe 4 retracts even less than in tllg mutants.