Examining the functional role of dPRL-1 in Drosophila Melanogaster

The Phosphatase of Regenerating Liver (PRL) family of proteins control cell growth, motility and proliferation. They have been shown to elevate the levels of these functions, leading to an increase in cancer metastasis (“malignancy”), when they are overexpressed. The goal of this experiment is to knockout PRL gene expression to examine the general function of PRL proteins. Drosophila melanogaster have only one copy of the PRL gene (dPRL-1), as opposed to humans and other mammals, which have 3. Thus, using P-element imprecise excision to create mutant strains either fully lacking or with decreased function of the dPRL-1 protein, I propose to evaluate the overall function of PRLs in living organisms. Because of their oncogenic nature, PRLs must be further characterized functionally so that future researchers can design molecularly targeted therapy treatments, counteracting cancer metastasis