Studying the relationship between EcR signaling and the Hippo Growth Pathway in developing Drosophila wings through dILP8 expression
Disciplines
Cell Biology | Developmental Biology | Molecular Biology
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Ecdysone is a hormone that binds the Ecdysone Receptor (EcR), a transcription factor, to control Drosophila development. EcR regulates development by activating or repressing transcriptional targets which is influenced by the binding of other proteins called coregulators. To better understand EcR transcriptional activity and how it influences development our lab developed a set of tools that disrupts EcR signaling by preventing coregulators from binding endogenous EcR. Interestingly, the coactivator Taiman has been shown to bind both EcR and Yorkie, a component of the Hippo Growth Control Pathway. One of the genes that both of these pathways control is dILP8, but we do not know if they work together or independently to regulate dILP8 expression. To test this, we overexpressed our genetic tools in the developing Drosophila wings in the background of a series of transcriptional reporters that contain fragments of the dILP8 promoter. Our results show that EcR signaling does regulate the dILP8 promoter independent of the Hippo Growth Pathway. These results suggest that hormone signaling does affect targets of the Hippo Growth Control Pathway.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
CSM - Molecular and Cellular Biology
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Joanna Wardwell-Ozgo
Studying the relationship between EcR signaling and the Hippo Growth Pathway in developing Drosophila wings through dILP8 expression
Ecdysone is a hormone that binds the Ecdysone Receptor (EcR), a transcription factor, to control Drosophila development. EcR regulates development by activating or repressing transcriptional targets which is influenced by the binding of other proteins called coregulators. To better understand EcR transcriptional activity and how it influences development our lab developed a set of tools that disrupts EcR signaling by preventing coregulators from binding endogenous EcR. Interestingly, the coactivator Taiman has been shown to bind both EcR and Yorkie, a component of the Hippo Growth Control Pathway. One of the genes that both of these pathways control is dILP8, but we do not know if they work together or independently to regulate dILP8 expression. To test this, we overexpressed our genetic tools in the developing Drosophila wings in the background of a series of transcriptional reporters that contain fragments of the dILP8 promoter. Our results show that EcR signaling does regulate the dILP8 promoter independent of the Hippo Growth Pathway. These results suggest that hormone signaling does affect targets of the Hippo Growth Control Pathway.