433C Poster - 05. Reproduction and gametogenesis
Saturday April 09, 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Authors:
Keala Watson ¹; Juan Carlos Duhart ²; Laurel Raftery ¹

Affiliations:
1) School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV; 2) Current Address: Dept. of Neuroscience, Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA

Keywords:
b. oogenesis; q. epithelial sheets

Formation of complex tissue structures involves multiple signaling pathways to coordinate cells. In Drosophila, epithelial cells form tubular structures to shape the dorsal appendages on the eggshells. We found that components of a Hippo-like intracellular signaling pathway are involved in shaping dorsal appendages, in particular, the core NDR kinase tricornered (Trc) and several Mob proteins. In humans, mice and flies, Mob proteins bind to NDR kinases and increase their activity. There are 4 Mob genes in Drosophila: mats (encoding Mob1), mob2, mob3, and mob4. We made a mob2 knockout allele by CRISPR/Cas9-aided homologous recombination, and found that homozygous females lay eggs with variably shorter dorsal appendages than control females. Knockdown of Tricornered kinase throughout the follicle cells was predominantly associated with defects in tube formation, with a minority of eggshells showing short dorsal appendages. These data suggest that another Mob protein associates with Tricornered for early dorsal appendage tube formation. We are testing the phenotypes of follicle cell knockdown for each of the other three Mob proteins, to identify a candidate Mob partner for Tricornered function in early dorsal appendage tube formation.