Project description:We made Polycomb (PC) and histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) chromatin binding maps in central brain tissue from 3rd instar larvae, allowing us to make a direct comparison to our 4C data (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE23166). Our results demonstrate that our PC and H3K27me3 maps are highly similar, and fit with previously identified hallmarks of PcG-bound chromatin, namely: PC and H3K27me3 co-occur in the genome as large contiguous domains that largely repress transcription of the underlying genes, which encode important regulators of development. Keywords: Genome binding/occupancy profiling by genome tiling array ChIP-chip experiments for H3K27me3 were performed in Drosophila larval brain tissue. Samples were hybridized to 380k NimbleGen arrays with 300 bp probe spacing.
Project description:The innate immune response of insects relies on several humoral and cellular mechanisms that require the activation of circulating proteases in the hemolymph to be functional. Here, we analyzed the gelatinase and caseinase activities of Drosophila larval hemolymph under normal and pathogenic conditions (bacterial lipopolysaccharides or endoparasitoid Leptopilina boulardi) using in gel zymography. Gelatinase activity was more intense than caseinase activity and qualitative and quantitative variations were observed between D. melanogaster strains and Drosophila species. Mass spectrometry identified a large number of serine proteases in gel bands equivalent to the major gelatinase and caseinase bands and of these, the most abundant and redundant were Tequila and members of the Jonah and Trypsin protease families. However, hemolymph from Tequila null mutant larvae showed no obvious changes in zymographic bands. Nor did we observe any significant changes in hemolymph gelatinases activity 24 h after injection of bacterial lipopolysaccharides or after oviposition by endoparasitoid wasps. These data confirmed that many serine proteases are present in Drosophila larval hemolymph but those with gelatinase and caseinase activity may not change drastically during the immune response.