The role of epithelial polarity factors in Drosophila flight muscle development

Author: Tsotne Chitiashvili
Keywords: Drosophila, epithelial polarity factors, flight muscles, muscle development
Annotation:

Apical-basal polarity is an essential principle of organization for epithelial cells. Defect in this process is very often connected to cancer and other diseases. However, little is known about the role of those epithelial factors in non-epithelial tissues. In this study we try to identify the role of several polarity factors in Drosophila flight muscle development, particularly in dorsal longitudinal muscles (DLM). Diverse patterns of adult muscle fibers form during the development of Drosophila, which share a lot of similarities with vertebrate muscles. In a muscle specific RNAi screen in Drosophila performed in the Schnorrer Group, Dlg5 (Discs large homolog 5) gene was found to be essential for formation of flight muscles. RNAi knockdown of Dlg5 causes lethality in flies. He we characterize the muscle specific phenotype of Dlg5 RNAi knockdown and we show the specificity of it with rescue experiment. Dlg (Discs large) is a member of MAGUK (membrane associated guanyltae kinase) proteins and in the epithelial cells it forms a complex with Lgl and Scrib and plays important role for basolateral polarity. Due to sequence similarity, Dlg5 is also classified as a MAGUK family member. To find out if Dlg5 muscle specific knockdown phenotype is caused by the loss of polarity in flight muscle, we studied the role of several epithelial polarity factors. In this study we show the expression of these polarity factors, their co-localization with different components of polarity and muscle specific RNAi phenotype. We also tried to identify the role of Dlg5 protein in vesicular machinery.

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ეპითელური პოლარობის განმსაზღვრელი ფაქტორების როლი დროზოფილას საფრენი კუნთების განვითარებაში [ka]