Neutral Competition for Drosophila Follicle and Cyst Stem Cell Niches Requires Vesicle Trafficking Genes.

ABSTRACT: The process of selecting for cellular fitness through competition plays a critical role in both development and disease. The germarium, a structure at the tip of the ovariole of a Drosophila ovary, contains two follicle stem cells (FSCs) that undergo neutral competition for the stem cell niche. Using the FSCs as a model, we performed a genetic screen through a collection of 126 mutants in essential genes on the X chromosome to identify candidates that increase or decrease competition for the FSC niche. We identified ∼55 and 6% of the mutations screened as putative FSC hypo- or hyper-competitors, respectively. We found that a large majority of mutations in vesicle trafficking genes (11 out of the 13 in the collection of mutants) are candidate hypo-competition alleles, and we c

SUBMITTER: Cook MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5500140 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature