Project description:Analysis of gene expression regulation typically requires identification of genomic sites where regulatory proteins bind. For this purpose, ChIP and DamID methods applied to cell lines or model organisms are now routinely used, even in selected cell types. In this work, we present modifications to experimental DamID protocol, as well as a custom data processing algorithm that allows to confidently identify genomic sites enriched with the proteins of interest. This algorithm is implemented in Perl and is also available as executable files thereby making DamID analysis relatively straightforward. Finally, we demonstrate how this pipeline performs when fed with real experimental data.
Project description:This project’s aim was to compare the transcriptional profiles of olfactory sensory neurons in Drosophila melanogaster in order to identify novel genes that specify neuron-specific functions/phenotypes or may otherwise be involved in the development of the olfactory system. The isolation of sufficient numbers of intact olfactory sensory neurons (OSN) from the antenna of Drosophila melanogaster has so far limited single-cell transcriptomic approaches being applied to the adult fly antenna. Targeted DamID (TaDa) provides an alternative approach for profiling transcriptional activity in a cell-specific manor that bypasses the need for isolating OSN. Using the Gal4/UAS system, we applied TaDa to seven OSN populations and compared differences in Pol II occupancy for genes across these datasets.
