Atharva Thakore
Research Mentor: Kenneth Cadigan
Mentor Department: University of Michigan, LSA
Author(s): Atharva Thakore, Kenneth Cadigan
Session: Session 7 (4:00 PM – 4:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 88
Abstract
This study was undertaken to understand the role of acidic amino acid residues in intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins in the armadillo protein on wnt/wingless signalling in the eye of drosophila to better understand IDR’s role in developmental control. Intrinsically disordered regions are regions of proteins without a defined structure, allowing them to make more complex biological interactions and are not fully understood. An important component of these IDRs are amino acid residues, which contribute to an IDR’s function and behavior in a way that requires further study. Aspartic acid and Glutamic acid are two acidic residues, polar and negative at physiological ph, which are the subject of this study. This study focuses mainly on the armadillo protein (arm) which has IDR regions with acidic residues. Arm is important in the wnt/wingless signalling pathway, a developmental cell proliferation pathway. This study focuses on the pathway in the eye, where wnt/wingless signalling (wingless is a secreted protein) stabilizes arm (inside the cell) which activates the hid protein which promotes apoptosis in the eye, meant to regulate drosophila eye size. Overexpressing wnt/wingless signalling in the eye results in a small eye phenotype compared to wild type, whether through the method of overexpressing wnt/wingless protein, arm protein, or hid protein. This study aims to see if the mutation in the arm protein’s acidic residues has an inhibitory effect on wnt signalling. This will be determined via a series of genetic crosses using the Gal-4 UAS system and observing the resulting eye phenotype to determine the amount of wnt/wingless signalling present to make a determination on the effect of acidic residue mutations in the arm protein on wnt/wngless signalling in the drosophila eye.
