New tools to monitor infection and biofilms in .

Introduction: Antimicrobial resistance is a growing health problem. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a pathogen of major concern because of its multidrug resistance and global threat, especially in health-care settings. The pathogenesis and drug resistance of depends on its ability to form biofilms, making infections chronic and untreatable as the biofilm protects against antibiotics and host immunity.

Delineation of a Fat tumor suppressor pathway.

Recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster of the protocadherins Dachsous and Fat suggest that they act as ligand and receptor, respectively, for an intercellular signaling pathway that influences tissue polarity, growth and gene expression, but the basis for signaling downstream of Fat has remained unclear. Here, we characterize functional relationships among D. melanogaster tumor suppressors and identify the kinases Discs overgrown and Warts as components of a Fat signaling pathway.

The tumor suppressors Merlin and Expanded function cooperatively to modulate receptor endocytosis and signaling.

The precise coordination of signals that control proliferation is a key feature of growth regulation in developing tissues . While much has been learned about the basic components of signal transduction pathways, less is known about how receptor localization, compartmentalization, and trafficking affect signaling in developing tissues. Here we examine the mechanism by which the Drosophila Neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2) tumor suppressor ortholog Merlin (Mer) and the related tumor suppressor expanded (ex) regulate proliferation and differentiation in imaginal epithelia.

Drosophila lacking microRNA miR-278 are defective in energy homeostasis.

The mechanisms that control energy homeostasis and tissue growth during development are closely linked through the insulin signal transduction pathway. Changes in the level of insulin and other hormones reflect the nutritional status of the animal to control circulating sugar levels and fat metabolism. Systemic defects in insulin responsiveness can lead to elevated circulating glucose levels and fat accumulation.

Cyp6a8 of Drosophila melanogaster: gene structure, and sequence and functional analysis of the upstream DNA.

In Drosophila, the insecticide resistant 91-R strain is an overproducer and susceptible 91-C and ry(506) strains are the underproducers of CYP6A8 mRNA encoded by a cytochrome P450 gene, Cyp6a8. Low expression of Cyp6a8 in the underproducer strains is due to a downregulatory effect of a putative repressor locus, which is thought to be mutant in the overproducer strain. In the present investigation, organization of Cyp6a8 and promoter activity of its upstream DNA were analyzed.