Eric Darrah
Another gene of interest for my project is smetana. Smetana, like tilB, is a ciliary gene and mutant flies have phenotypes similar to those of tilB. Likewise, its zebrafish homolog is switch hitter, with mutant phenotypes similar to those of seahorse. I will run the same experiment with these two genes using switch hitter MOs and smetana mRNA to test for phenotypic rescue in zebrafish.
Additionally, I will observe any possible protein-protein interactions of tilB and smetana at the cellular level using D. rerio as a vertebrate model. Both genes have leucine-rich repeats, so protein-protein interactions are probable.
Education: contact:
Biology Major eric-darrah@uiowa.edu
Position:
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Project:
Ciliary genes in Drosophila and Danio
Drosophila and zebrafish ciliary gene homologs
My research investigates ciliary genes from Drosophila melanogaster and their homologs in the zebrafish, Danio rerio. Touch-insensitive larva B (tilB) mutant flies exhibit phenotypes that render male sterility and deafness due to defective ciliated cells. Mutations in tilB’s zebrafish homolog, seahorse, cause defects affecting heart placement, kidney cysts and severe body curvature in zebrafish.
I knock down expression of seahorse by injecting morpholino oligonucleotides (MO) in the one cell stage of D. rerio embryos which block transcription of the target gene. As expected, this causes phenotypes similar to those of seahorse(hi3308) mutants. Along with the seahorse MO, I coinject tilB tagged with GFP mRNA to observe possible rescue of phenotypes. Preliminary data provides evidence that tilB rescues a small percentage of injected embryos. In addition to testing for phenotypic rescue, I wish to observe where tilB protein is localized within the cell.
Embryos injected with seahorse morpholinos exhibit a curved tail phenotype.
The curly phenotype is rescued when co-injected with the Drosophila homolog.
