Project description:Insulators are considered as chromosome organizers. BEAF, one of the insulator proteins, is highly conserved in Drosophila speies but also limited to Drosophila spcies. BEAF associates with TSS of active genes. Comparative study of BEAF binding landscapes in four Drosophila species reveals BEAF association with gene pairs, and the results suggest the role of gain or loss of BEAF binding during the speciation of Drosophila species.
Project description:Insulators are considered as chromosome organizers. BEAF, one of the insulator proteins, is highly conserved in Drosophila speies but also limited to Drosophila spcies. BEAF associates with TSS of active genes. Comparative study of BEAF binding landscapes in four Drosophila species reveals BEAF association with gene pairs, and the results suggest the role of gain or loss of BEAF binding during the speciation of Drosophila species. DNA sample from ChIP for BEAF and input are collected for each of four Drosophila species
Project description:In this study, we look at both targeted and untargeted metabolomic data from both sexes and 11 species of Drosophila. For the targeted analysis, we also looked at two ages to understand conserved changes with age in the Drosophila genus.
Project description:Human peroxisome biogenesis disorders are lethal genetic disease in which abnormal peroxisome assembly compromises overall peroxisome and cellular function. Peroxisomes are ubiquitous membrane-bound organelles involved in several important biochemical processes, notably lipid metabolism and the use of reactive oxygen species for detoxification. Using cultured cells, we systematically characterized the peroxisome assembly phenotypes associated with dsRNA-mediated knockdown of 14 predicted Drosophila homologs of PEX genes (encoding peroxins; required for peroxisome assembly and linked to peroxisome biogenesis disorders), and confirmed that at least 13 of them are required for normal peroxisome assembly. We also demonstrate the relevance of Drosophila as a genetic model for the early developmental defects associated with the human peroxisome biogenesis disorders. Mutation of the PEX1 gene is the most common cause of peroxisome biogenesis disorders and is one of the causes of the most severe form of the disease, Zellweger syndrome. Inherited mutations in Drosophila Pex1 correlate with reproducible defects during early development. Notably, Pex1 mutant larvae exhibit abnormalities that are analogous to those exhibited by Zellweger syndrome patients, including developmental delay, poor feeding, severe structural abnormalities in the peripheral and central nervous systems, and early death. Finally, microarray analysis defined clusters of genes whose expression varied significantly between wild-type and mutant larvae, implicating peroxisomal function in neuronal development, innate immunity, lipid and protein metabolism, gamete formation, and meiosis. Expression profiles were analyzed in triplicate from whole larvae of wild-type and pex1 homozygous mutant Drosophila.
Project description:The Drosophila male-specific lethal (MSL) complex binds to the male X chromosome to activate transcription, and consists of five proteins, MSL1, MSL2, MSL3, MOF, MLE, and two roX RNAs. The MLE helicase remodels the roX lncRNAs, enabling the lncRNA-mediated assembly of the Drosophila dosage compensation complex. MSL2 is expressed only in males and interacts with the N-terminal zinc-finger of the transcription factor CLAMP that is important for specific recruitment of the MSL complex on the male X chromosome. Here we found that the unstructured C-terminal region of MLE interacts with 6-7 zinc-finger domains of CLAMP. In vitro 4-5 zinc fingers are critical for specific DNA-binding of CLAMP with GA-repeats, which constitute the core motif at the high affinity binding sites for MSL proteins. Deletion of the Clamp Binding Domain (CBD) in MLE results in decreasing of MSL proteins association with male X chromosome and increasing of male lethality. These results suggest that interactions of unstructured regions in MSL2 and MLE with CLAMP zinc finger domains are important for the specific recruitment of the MSL complex on the male X chromosome.
Project description:Extensive sex-biased expression has been seen in multiple surveys D. melanogaster. We were interested in broadly sampling sex-biased expression of orthologs and species- or lineage-specific genes in the Drosophila genus. To appropriately assay gene expression in multiple species, we used custom microarrays designed against each of six species that broadly sample the phylogenetic space represented by the newly completed genomes (D. simulans, D. yakuba, D. ananassae, D. pseudoobscura, D. virilis and D. mojavensis) and an array designed against D. melanogaster to determine the overall patterns of sex-biased expression in those species and their chromosome linkage. Keywords: other