Project description:The conserved Mef2 transcription factor is a major regulator of gene expression and differentiation. Recent genomic studies have identified a large number of mef2-regulated target genes with distinct temporal expression profiles during Drosophila myogenesis. However, the question remains as to how a single transcription factor can control such diverse patterns of gene expression. The aim of this project was to investigate whether there are genes with different mef2-requirements for their expression during muscle differentiation in vivo during the development of Drosophila melanogaster. Experiment Overall Design: We used microarrays in conjunction with a mef2 allelic series to determine the gene expression profile in developing embryos at five different levels of mef2 activity. The allelic series extends from a null mutation, mef222.21, through to the control, via three hypomorphic alleles, mef2113, mef2424, and mef265. The series corresponds to different levels of Mef2 in the following order: control > 65 > 424 > 113 > 22.21. The control stock for the microarray analysis was dp cn a px sp, the stock used for the mutagenesis that produced mef265, mef2424 and mef2113. For the microarrays, 30 minute collections of control and mutant embryos for each mef2 allele were individually staged and pools of 150 embryos were then processed at mid stage 13. This corresponds to the early differentiation phase of muscle development and the expression of multiple muscle sarcomeric protein genes. Quadruplicate samples were assayed using Affymetrix® Genechips by the Flychip Drosophila microarray resource.
Project description:The conserved Mef2 transcription factor is a major regulator of gene expression and differentiation. Recent genomic studies have identified a large number of mef2-regulated target genes with distinct temporal expression profiles during Drosophila myogenesis. However, the question remains as to how a single transcription factor can control such diverse patterns of gene expression. The aim of this project was to investigate whether there are genes with different mef2-requirements for their expression during muscle differentiation in vivo during the development of Drosophila melanogaster. Keywords: allelic series comparison
Project description:In order to understand the chronic hypoxia (CH) effect upon the absence of dystrophin, Drosophila melanogaster wild type and the model for DMD (dmDys), in which all dystrophins expression was knocked out by iRNA, were exposed to high altitude hypoxia (hypobaric hypoxia) during a 16-day climbing period reaching the summit of Mount McKinley (6194 meters above sea level). Furthermore, dmDys and Drosophila wild type were exposed to normobaric hypoxia (hypoxic chamber) following the same oxygen levels observed during the climbing expedition and to normoxic conditions for comparison. Affymetrix GeneChip® profiling was performed for individual flies from each experimental group. CH-dmDys differentially expressed 1281 genes, whereas control group differentially expressed 57 genes. Eight heat shock protein genes detected in the CH-dmDys microarray study were down-regulated, instead of up-regulated as seen in wild type hypoxic flies. This result suggests a differential gene expression response to CH, which could affect muscle performance.These results suggest that dmDys is more sensitive to CH due to reduced muscle function and hypoxic stress response.
Project description:Genomewide mapping of D. melanogaster the muscle differentiation factor Mef2 protein binding during embryonic development. Five consecutive timepoints (2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-10, 10-12 hrs after egg-laying) were assayed in two independent repeats each. Two different antibodies were used to precipitate the Mef2 protein. Additionally the respective preimmune-serum was used as a control for every precipitation. The enriched DNA was hybridized to high density Affymetrix GeneChip Drosophila Tiling 1.0R array.