Project description:Maintenance of central nervous system (CNS) homeostasis requires tight regulation over the metabolites, drugs, cells, and pathogens entering the brain. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) carries out these functions, but the regulatory mechanisms underlying BBB physiology are not completely understood. In addition, the BBB has long been an obstacle to the pharmacologic treatment of CNS diseases, thus molecular model systems that can parse BBB functions and understand the complex integration of sophisticated cellular anatomy and highly polarized chemical protection physiology are desperately needed. In this study, we developed FACS isolation methods for the purification of the surface glia that form the Drosophila BBB. By comparing the transcriptomes (via microarray analyses) of surface glia, FACS isolated neurons, and whole brains, we present a complete catalog of transcripts enriched at the Drosophila BBB. The surface glia transcriptome contains many ABC and SLC transporters, cell adhesion molecules, xenobiotic metabolism pathways, metabolic enzymes, and signaling molecules. Using gene set enrichment analyses and sequence-based comparisons, we compare the Drosophila surface glia to the vertebrate vascular endothelial BBB.
Project description:Using cell-restricted transcriptome analysis, here we show that Drosophila ommatidial cone (or Semper) cells are enriched for conserved glial regulators and effectors, including many characteristic of vertebrate retinal glia: Müller glia and astrocytes.
Project description:We performed neuron and glia specific knockdown of PIG-A in Drosophila to understand the molecular defects that occur with loss of GPI anchored proteins. PIG-A encodes an enzyme responsible for the first step in GPI anchor biosynthesis. Loss of PIG-A in neurons and glia results in different neurological defects.
Project description:We characterized the glial cells in the Drosophila third instar brain using single cell RNA-seq and compared a Ama knockdown glia to the control. The results identified defects in surface glia, an increase in infiltrating hemocytes, and a novel Ama knockdown cluster defined by sty.
Project description:Absolute (molar) quantification determines proteins stoichiometry in complexes, networks and metabolic pathways. We employed MS Western workflow to determine molar abundances of proteins critical for morphogenesis and phototransduction (PT) in eyes of Drosophila melanogaster using a single chimeric 264 kDa protein standard that covers, in total, 197 peptides from 43 proteins. Each protein was independently quantified with 2 to 4 proteotypic peptides with the coefficient of variation of less than 15 %, better than 1000-fold dynamic range and sub-femtomole sensitivity. We determined molar abundances and stoichiometric ratios of the components of the PT machinery and the rhabdomere, and how they are changing when rhabdomere morphogenesis is perturbed by genetic manipulation of the evolutionary conserved gene crumbs (crb).
Project description:Beyond its crucial role as a tight barrier to protect the nervous system, the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) is increasingly being recognized for its physiological processes that affect brain function and behavior. In Drosophila melanogaster, the BBB expresses sex-specific transcripts, and a change in the sexual identity of adult BBB cells results in a significant reduction of male courtship behavior. The molecular nature of this BBB/brain interaction is unknown. Here we feminize BBB cells by targeted expression of the Drosophila female specific master regulator TraF in otherwise normal males. We examined the effect on RNA expression in dissected brains by RNA sequencing. We find that 284 transcripts change in comparison to normal males. Transcripts representing cell signaling processes and synaptic communication are enriched, as are hormonal mediators. These transcripts are candidates for the sex-specific interaction between the BBB and the brain circuits that regulate behavior.
Project description:In Drosophila melanogaster larval hemolymph, under normal conditions, plasmatocytes and crystal cells represent respectively ~95% and ~5% of hemocytes, while lamellocytes, the third larval cell type, are absent since they are only induced after parasitoid wasp oviposition, their role being the encapsulation-melanization response to eliminate the wasp egg. However, even after induction lamellocytes number remains low, making difficult biochemical studies. Here using the D. melanogaster hopTum-l mutant that constitutively produces a high number of hemocytes, we set up a method to purify lamellocytes and analyzed their major proteins by 2D gel electrophoresis and their biotinylated plasma membrane surface proteins by 1D SDS-PAGE after affinity purification. Mass spectrometry allowed to identify 430 proteins from the 2D spots and 344 from affinity purified proteins, totalizing 639 unique proteins. Known lamellocyte markers such as PPO3 and the integrin myospheroid are among the major proteins and affinity purification led to the detection of other integrins and a large array of integrins associated proteins involved in cell-cell junction formation and function. Overall newly identified proteins indicated that these cells are highly adapted to the encapsulation process but may have also several different physiological functions. This study provides the basis for new lamellocyte studies in vivo and in vitro, and develop markers to search whether different populations coexist, establish their origins and decipher their respective roles in drosophila physiology and immunity.