Role of Mapmodulin in the Guidance of Invasive Border Cells in Drosophila Oogenesis

R, Jijimole G (2015) Role of Mapmodulin in the Guidance of Invasive Border Cells in Drosophila Oogenesis. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

PDF (MS dissertation of Jijimole G.R. (10MS74)) Thesis_Jijimole_10MS74.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)

Abstract

Guided cell migration plays an important role in development and maintaining adult homeostasis in most of the organism. Gastrulation, neural development, immune surveillance and tumour metastasis are classic examples where the cells undergoing guided cell migration. Chemoattractants like chemokines, cytokines and growth factors are the signalling molecules that guide the cells to their final destination. One of the well-characterized guidance mechanisms is mediated by receptor tyrosine kinase signalling (RTK) that is known to consist of a set of kinases. These kinases aid in signal transduction by phosphorylating and activating the next downstream target. Though we have fairly good understanding of how this cascade is stimulated and but it is not very clear as to how it is regulated and inactivated. Border cell migration in Drosophila oogenesis has emerged as an excellent model system for studying guided migration. Border cells are a group of 6- 10 follicle cells that respond to RTK ligands and migrate to the oocyte boundary. These cells eventually form a micropyle that aid in sperm entry during fertilization. Here we examine the role of a phosphatase inhibitor, Mapmodulin (Map) in border cell migration. Mapmodulin has been predicted as a protein phosphatase 2A inhibitor and protein trap analysis show that it is expressed in the Drosophila ovary. Down regulation of its function using RNA interference approach impedes border cell movement. In live cell imaging analysis, we observed that the mapmodulin depleted clusters migrated slowly, exhibited large number of contractions and interestingly displayed quite a few actin puncta. Results from the above experiment will be presented.

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