Project description:FoxA transcription factors play major roles in organ-specific gene expression. How FoxA proteins achieve specificity is unclear, given their broad expression patterns and requirements in multiple cell types. Here, we characterize Sage, a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor expressed exclusively in the Drosophila salivary gland (SG). We identify Sage targets and show that not only are both Sage and the single Drosophila FoxA protein, Fork head (Fkh), required for expression of these genes, but coexpression of Sage and Fkh is sufficient to drive target gene expression in multiple other cell types. Sage and Fkh drive expression of the bZip transcription factor Senseless (Sens), which boosts expression of Sage/Fkh targets. Importantly, Sage, Fkh and Sens colocalize on salivary gland polytene chromosomes. Thus, Fkh drives cell-type specific gene expression as part of a tissue-specific transcription module that includes Sage and Sens, providing a new paradigm for how mammalian FoxA proteins acheive specificity. Three control samples were obtained from the tub-Gal4 strain, age matched and treated the same as the three experimental samples isolated from Stages 11-16 embryos expressing UAS-Sage controlled by the tub-Gal4 driver.
Project description:In order to study how ectopic Yki drives tissue overgrowth in Drosophila imaginal discs, we overexpressed the constitutively active Yki3SA and deleted wts in clones of cells in the entire eye-antennal imaginal disc, as well as specifically in eye disc proper cells using Optix-Gal4. Using the MARCM system allowed us to compare the effects of Yki3SA overexpression in wild-type and sd mutant clones.
Project description:Histones are essential for chromatin packaging and histone supply must be tightly regulated as excess histones are toxic. To drive the rapid cell cycles of the early embryo, however, excess histones are maternally deposited. Therefore, soluble histones must be buffered by histone chaperones but the chaperone necessary to stabilize soluble H3-H4 pools in the Drosophila embryo has yet to be identified. Here, we show that CG8223, the Drosophila ortholog of NASP, is a H3-H4-specific chaperone in the early embryo. NASP specifically binds to H3-H4 in the early embryo. We demonstrate that, while NASP is non-essential in Drosophila, NASP is maternal effect lethal gene. Embryos laid by NASP mutant mothers have a reduce rate of hatching and show defects in early embryogenesis. Critically, soluble H3-H4 pools are degraded in embryos laid by NASP mutant mothers. Our work identifies NASP as the critical H3-H4 histone chaperone in the Drosophila embryo.
Project description:To identify novel regulators of the Hippo pathway, we performed affinity purification-mass spectrometry (AP-MS) using Drosophila embryos overexpressing Yki-EGFP with a ubiquitous driver da-GAL4, as well as cultured S2 cells expressing Yki-SBP. We identified the core Hippo pathway components, multiple Hippo pathway regulators and functional groups, and several putative Yki interactors including Bonus (Bon). To identify additional cofactors that are recruited by Bon, we performed AP-MS using Bon-SBP expressed in Drosophila S2 cells. Further genetic tests revealed the involvement of Bon interactors, HDAC1, Su(var)2-10, and Hrb27C, in the Drosophila eye specification that is regulated by the Yki-Bon complex.
Project description:cabut (cbt), is the Drosophila ortholog of the human TGF-β Inducible Early Gene 1 (dTIEG). It encodes a transcription factor involved in Drosophila dorsal closure (DC), and it is expressed in embryonic epithelial sheets and yolk cell during this process upon activation of the Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway. Additional studies suggest that cbt may have a role in multiple developmental processes. We used microarrays to detail the target genes of Cbt during dorsal closure process cbtEP(2)2237E1 homozigote Drosophila mutant embryos were selected at 10-13 stage (during dorsal closure process) from non-GFP embryos from the line cbtEP(2)2237E1/Cy0, twi-eGFP line by embryo sorter assays. In parallel, samples of white embryos at same stages (as control) were sorting also by embryo sorter. Also using UAS-GAL4 system, Cbt was overexpressed in the embrionic epidermis during 10-13 stage by epidermal driver (69B-Gal4) and UAS-Cbt line.