Fate in Focus: Investigating Dve and Chb Roles in Drosophila eye development

Fate in Focus: Investigating Dve and Chb Roles in Drosophila eye development

    Presenter(s)

    Sunanda Yogi

    Description

    Chromosome bows (Chb)/Mast/Orbit is essential for organizing the bipolar mitotic spindle at the kinetochore. This microtubule plus-end tracking protein maintains the microtubule dynamics and is evolutionarily conserved, with its human ortholog being a cytoplasmic linker-associated protein (CLASP). CLASP is vital for microtubule distribution and stability during the cell cycle and has been implicated in neurofibrillary tangle formation in tauopathies. From the preliminary studies, we have found certain pathogenic variants in the CLASP, which leads to a spectrum of opathy disorders, including Roifman Syndrome. The phenotypic features were seen as skeletal and organ anomalies, developmental delay in vision, and facial dysmorphism. We use Drosophila as a genetically tractable model system encompassing various developmental stages to mechanistically understand how pathogenic variants in CLASP/Chb contribute to developmental delays. Our investigation of the genetic interactome revealed that Chb is suppressed by defective proventriculus (Dve), a K50 homeodomain transcription factor, which is essential for cell type specification and expressed in the dorsal head vertex region of the eye-antennal imaginal disc. We hypothesize that if Dve regulates Chb expression, it may lead to altered microtubule assembly. By employing the UAS-Gal4 system to knock down and overexpress Chb in the eye, we observed a reduction in eye size and a shift from eye to cuticular fate in the proper ommatidial arrangement. We are examining Chb expression in the eye, focusing on its loss-of-function and gain-of-function effects on Dve. Additionally, we aim to investigate the impact on Dve expression and its downstream regulators of eye development. This research will provide insights into the key partners involved in the cellular assembly of microtubules during birth eye defects.

    Publication Date

    4-23-2025

    Project Designation

    Graduate Research

    Primary Advisor

    Madhuri Kango-Singh, Amit Singh

    Primary Advisor's Department

    Biology

    Keywords

    Stander Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

    Institutional Learning Goals

    Scholarship

    Fate in Focus: Investigating Dve and Chb Roles in Drosophila eye development

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