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Conditional inactivation of MRG15 gene function limits survival during larval and adult stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: The mammalian MRG15 gene encodes a chromodomain protein predicted to bind to chromatin via methylated histone tails. Human MORF4 encodes a related but truncated protein that is capable of promoting cellular senescence in a subset of human tumor cell lines. Drosophila contains a single homolog of human MRG15, called DmMRG15. Null mutation of MRG15 is embryonic-lethal in mice and Drosophila, making the study of MRG15 requirements in adults difficult. In these studies the DmMRG15 gene was over-expressed in Drosophila, during developmental stages and in adults, using a doxycycline-regulated system (Tet-on). In addition an inverted-repeated construct was designed to inactivate DmMRG15 via the RNAi pathway, and RNAi constructs were expressed using both the Tet-on system and Geneswitch system. The DmMRG15 protein was readily expressed in adult flies in a doxycycline-dependent manner. A truncated form of DmMRG15 (called DmMT1) was designed to mimic the structure of human MORF4, and expression of this mutant protein or the inverted-repeat constructs inhibited fertility in females. Conditional expression of the DmMRG15 inverted-repeat constructs during larval development or in adults caused reductions in survival. These experiments indicate that Drosophila DmMRG15 gene function is required for female fertility, larval survival and adult life span, and provide reagents that should be useful for further dissecting the role of DmMRG15 in cell proliferation and aging.

SUBMITTER: Zhang H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2952352 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Conditional inactivation of MRG15 gene function limits survival during larval and adult stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

Zhang Hongjun H Li Yishi Y Yang Junsheng J Tominaga Kaoru K Pereira-Smith Olivia M OM Tower John J

Experimental gerontology 20100623 11

The mammalian MRG15 gene encodes a chromodomain protein predicted to bind to chromatin via methylated histone tails. Human MORF4 encodes a related but truncated protein that is capable of promoting cellular senescence in a subset of human tumor cell lines. Drosophila contains a single homolog of human MRG15, called DmMRG15. Null mutation of MRG15 is embryonic-lethal in mice and Drosophila, making the study of MRG15 requirements in adults difficult. In these studies the DmMRG15 gene was over-expr ...[more]

PMID: 20600782

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Project description:Microorganisms play a central role in the biology of vinegar flies such as Drosophila suzukii and Drosophila melanogaster: serving as a food source to both adults and larvae, and influencing a range of traits including nutrition, behavior, and development. The niches utilized by the fly species partially overlap, as do the microbiota that sustain them, and interactions among these players may drive the development of crop diseases. To learn more about how the microbiota of one species may affect the other, we isolated and identified microbes from field-caught D. suzukii, and then characterized their effects on D. melanogaster larval development time in the laboratory. We found that the D. suzukii microbiota consistently included both yeasts and bacteria. It was dominated by yeasts of the genus Hanseniaspora, and bacteria from the families Acetobacteraceae and Enterobacteriaceae. Raising D. melanogaster under gnotobiotic conditions with each microbial isolate individually, we found that some bacteria promoted larval development relative to axenic conditions, but most did not have a significant effect. In contrast, nearly all the yeasts tested significantly accelerated larval development. The one exception was Starmerella bacillaris, which had the opposite effect: significantly slowing larval developmental rate. We investigated the basis for this effect by examining whether S. bacillaris cells could sustain larval growth, and measuring the survival of S. bacillaris and other yeasts in the larval gut. Our results suggest S. bacillaris is not digested by D. melanogaster and therefore cannot serve as a source of nutrition. These findings have interesting implications for possible interactions between the two Drosophilia species and their microbiota in nature. Overall, we found that microbes isolated from D. suzukii promote D. melanogaster larval development, which is consistent with the model that infestation of fruit by D. suzukii can open up habitat for D. melanogaster. We propose that the microbiome is an important dimension of the ecological interactions between Drosophila species.

Dataset Information

Conditional inactivation of MRG15 gene function limits survival during larval and adult stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

Publications

Conditional inactivation of MRG15 gene function limits survival during larval and adult stages of Drosophila melanogaster.

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