Interaction of the hippo pathway and dronc in regulating cell proliferation

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is one of the most important regulatory events for proper tissue homeostasis. It is a gene-directed program that helps in controlling the number of cells through components that influence cell survival as well as those that control proliferation and differentiation. Dysregulation of apoptosis is a hallmark for cancer in which mutated tumor cells exhibit uncontrolled cell division and evade cell death. Hence, to understand cancer biology and devise effective therapeutic avenue, it is highly essential to study how the genes involved in the pathways of cell growth and cell death get dysregulated to promote tumorigenesis. The Hippo signaling pathway was identified in Drosophila melanogaster, (commonly known as the fruit fly) and is evolutionarily conserved in mammals. The Hippo pathway regulates organ size, cell proliferation, and cell death, and is commonly deregulated in human tumors. Previous study in our lab has shown that the Hippo pathway interacts with initiator capase Dronc, along with effector caspase Drice and Dark to regulate cell death. In addition, Dronc is the first target gene that is negatively regulated by the Hippo pathway. We hypothesized that loss of Dronc, Drice, and Dark function will enable unchecked cell proliferation. To evaluate this we used the eye imaginal disc of the Drosophila melanogaster in which we will produce small clones of mutated cells for Dronc. We will evaluate different cell proliferation markers like cyclin A and E through immunostaining and confocal microscopy. This will help us in understanding how the loss of Dronc affects cell proliferation. Here we present our findings on this