Date of Award
5-1996
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
First Advisor
Cooley, Lynn
Abstract
Drosophila singed mutants were named for their gnarled bristle phenotype, however, severe alleles are also female sterile due to a defect in nurse cell cytoplasm transport. Recently, singed protein was shown to have 35% peptide identity with the actin bundling protein fascin. I present evidence that singed is a homolog of fascin. In vivo, singed is required for actin filament bundle formation in the cytoplasm of nurse cells during oogenesis and in the cellular extension that forms a bristle. In vitro, purified bacterially-expressed singed bundles actin filaments with the same 12 nm periodicity and stoichiometry reported for sea urchin fascin.While many homologs of fascin have been described, functional domain organization is not understood. I generated 15 new sn alleles by EMS mutagenesis; surprisingly only 2 of these expressed fascin. singedG409E mutants have multiply bent bristles and are fertile, although nurse cell cytoplasmic actin bundles appear disorganized and cytoplasm transport is partially incomplete. singedS289N mutants have gnarled bristles and are sterile. I used the singedS289N allele in a dominant suppressor of sterility screen and identified an intragenic mutation S251F that appears to restore much of fascin's function. These mutations, G409E, S289N and S251F, draw attention to critical amino aclds in fascin.At wild type protein levels, both fascin and quail, a villin-like protein, are required for cytoplasmic actin bundle formation. I looked for genetic interaction between singed and quail. Mutations in quail enhance the intermediate egg chamber phenotype of singedG409E. Furthermore, overexpression of quail protein can rescue the cytoplasmic actin defect and sterility of singedS289N and of the null allele, singed28. In the absence of fascin, overexpression of quail is sufficient for the formation of actin bundles.
Recommended Citation
Cant, Kelly, "Genetic and biochemical characterization of Drosophila singed, a homolog of the actin bundling protein fascin" (1996). Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library. 2213.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ymtdl/2213
