Human 14-3-3 gamma protein results in abnormal cell proliferation in the developing eye of Drosophila melanogaster.

Background: 14-3-3 proteins are a family of adaptor proteins that participate in a wide variety of cellular processes. Recent evidence indicates that the expression levels of these proteins are elevated in some human tumors providing circumstantial evidence for their involvement in human cancers. However, the mechanism through which these proteins act in tumorigenesis is uncertain.

Regulation of the activity of the tumor suppressor PTEN by thioredoxin in Drosophila melanogaster.

Human Thioredoxin-1 (hTrx-1) is a small redox protein with a molecular weight of 12 kDa that contains two cysteine residues found in its catalytic site. HTrx-1 plays an important role in cell growth, apoptosis, and cancer patient prognosis. Recently, we have demonstrated that hTrx-1 binds to the C2 domain of the human tumor suppressor, PTEN, in a redox dependent manner.

Disruption of C-terminal cytoplasmic domain of betaPS integrin subunit has dominant negative properties in developing Drosophila.

We have analyzed a set of new and existing strong mutations in the myospheroid gene, which encodes the betaPS integrin subunit of Drosophila. In addition to missense and other null mutations, three mutants behave as antimorphic alleles, indicative of dominant negative properties. Unlike null alleles, the three antimorphic mutants are synthetically lethal in double heterozygotes with an inflated (alphaPS2) null allele, and they fail to complement very weak, otherwise viable alleles of myospheroid.