AI Article Synopsis
- - The zyxin protein family plays crucial roles in regulating cytoskeleton activities like adhesion, actin assembly, and cell movement, with zyxin-null mice showing motility issues but remaining viable and fertile.
- - In fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), a single zyxin homologue (Zyx102) was studied using a transgenic RNA-interference line to knock down Zyx102 expression during development.
- - Loss of Zyx102 leads to lethality in the flies at a critical stage where they must complete molting and air-filling processes, resulting in attempts to emerge without success, even though the flies appear normal when isolated from the pupal case.
Article Abstract
The zyxin family of proteins function as cytoskeletal regulators in adhesion, actin assembly, and cell motility. Though fibroblasts derived from zyxin-null mice show striking defects in motility and response to mechanical stimuli, the mice are viable and fertile. In Drosophila melanogaster, the family is represented by a single homologue, Zyx102. To study the role of zyxin during development, we generated a zyx102 RNA-interference transgenic line that allows for the conditional knockdown of Zyx102. When UAST-zyx102-dsRNAi expression is driven broadly by Actin5C-GAL4, loss of Zyx102 results in lethality during the pharate adult stage, a narrow developmental window during which the fly must molt, resorb molting fluid, fill adult trachea with air, and execute a behavioral program to eclose. Zyx102 knockdown animals attempt to emerge, but their adult trachea do not fill with air. If dissected from the pupal case, knockdown individuals appear morphologically normal, but remain inviable.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939194 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ar.21193 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Food hardness preference reveals multisensory contributions of fly larval gustatory organs in behaviour and physiology.
PLoS Biol
January 2025
Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Food presents a multisensory experience, with visual, taste, and olfactory cues being important in allowing an animal to determine the safety and nutritional value of a given substance. Texture, however, remains a surprisingly unexplored aspect, despite providing key information about the state of the food through properties such as hardness, liquidity, and granularity. Food perception is achieved by specialised sensory neurons, which themselves are defined by the receptor genes they express.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlia control experience-dependent plasticity in an olfactory critical period.
Elife
January 2025
Department of Neurosciences, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, United States.
Sensory experience during developmental critical periods has lifelong consequences for circuit function and behavior, but the molecular and cellular mechanisms through which experience causes these changes are not well understood. The antennal lobe houses synapses between olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) and downstream projection neurons (PNs) in stereotyped glomeruli. Many glomeruli exhibit structural plasticity in response to early-life odor exposure, indicating a general sensitivity of the fly olfactory circuitry to early sensory experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSynaptic enrichment and dynamic regulation of the two opposing dopamine receptors within the same neurons.
Elife
January 2025
Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
Dopamine can play opposing physiological roles depending on the receptor subtype. In the fruit fly , and encode the D- and D-like receptors, respectively, and are reported to oppositely regulate intracellular cAMP levels. Here, we profiled the expression and subcellular localization of endogenous Dop1R1 and Dop2R in specific cell types in the mushroom body circuit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased expression of the small lysosomal gene SVIP in the Drosophila gut suppresses pathophysiological features associated with a high-fat diet.
Biol Open
February 2025
Louisiana State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
Lysosomes are digestive organelles that are crucial for nutrient sensing and metabolism. Lysosome impairment is linked to a broad spectrum of metabolic disorders, underscoring their importance to human health. Thus, lysosomes are an attractive target for metabolic disease therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFElectric-field induced sleep promotion and lifespan extension in Gaucher's disease model flies.
Biochem Biophys Rep
March 2025
Institute for Chronobiology, Foundation for Advancement of International Science (FAIS), 3-24-16 Kasuga, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0812, Japan.
Gaucher's disease (GD) is a genetic disease characterized by a mutation in the metabolic enzyme glucocerebrosidase (GBA1), leading to the accumulation of glucosylceramide in tissues. We previously discovered that a -inserted mutation in the gene of fruit flies, , mimics human neuronopathic GD (nGD) characteristics, providing a promising model for studying the molecular mechanisms of the disease. We also reported that extremely low-frequency electric fields (ELF-EFs) promote sleep and extend the lifespan of wild-type flies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!