Structure function analysis of defective proventriculus (dve) in Drosophila melanogaster eye growth and development

During development, axial patterning is required to establish Antero-posterior (AP), Dorso-Ventral (DV), and Proximo-Distal (PD) axes, which is crucial for the generation of a 3-dimensional organ from a monolayer organ primordium. Of the three axes, DV axis is the first lineage restriction event during eye development and any deviation results in developmental birth defects. In our study, we have used Drosophila melanogaster (Fruit fly) eye as a model system to understand the role of different domains of a new dorsal eye fate selector gene, defective proventriculus (dve, an ortholog of SATB1) in growth and development. In humans, SATB1, functions as a transcriptional regulator and chromatin organizer and requires tetramerization by the ULD domain. In Drosophila eye, dve regulates expression of wingless (wg), a negative regulator of eye. In genetic hierarchy, dve acts downstream of GATA-1 transcription factor pannier (pnr) and upstream of wg. Loss-of-function of dve results in dorsal eye enlargement while gain-of-function results in eye suppression. We performed structure function analysis of Dve protein to elucidate the role of various domains in patterning, growth and differentiation. We have developed several transgenic lines, which will allow us to induce expression domains of the specific domains of Dve protein and assay their effect on Drosophila eye patterning and growth. Dve has a ULD domain for tetramerization, HOX domain for DNA binding and PPP4R2 domain for H2AFX dephosphorylation. Here we present our results on ectopic induction of these individual domains of Dve and their effect on eye phenotype and Wg expression in the developing eye.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/stander_posters/3018/thumbnail.jp