Switching on the fly genome( For the first time scientists at the E...)

For the first time, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have used a new technique to monitor the activity of the complete genome of the fruitfly, one of biologys most important model organisms. The method, called SAGE, allowed them to watch what happens as cells receive a signal that helps form tissues. They discovered that hundreds of fly genes respond when cells are stimulated with a molecular signal called JNK. Their work is reported in this months issue of Developmental Cell.

While SAGE has already been used to study human and mouse cells, researchers regard its adaptation to the fruitfly as a critical step. A SAGE study creates a lot of hypotheses about genes that may be involved in specific biological processes, says Dirk Bohmann, whose group headed the project. You want to test those hypotheses in a whole organism one that we know a lot about, which has a short lifespan, and on which it is ethically acceptable to perform experiments. The fruitfly has been used in genetic studies for nearly a century, so we have powerful tools to investigate it that dont exist in other organisms.

Molecular signals have their effects by switching on and off genes; an activated gene produces RNA molecules. SAGE can collect and count them all, directly showing how active each gene is. Heinrich Jasper and other members of the Bohmann group showed that activating the JNK signal increased the output of over 300 genes and decreased that of over 300 others. Many of these had never been connected to JNK signaling before, Bohmann says. Our follow-up experiments quickly eliminated red herrings and gave us a good idea of the genes likely to guide similar processes in mice and other animals. Researchers knew that the JNK signal helped the skin to form properly, but they didnt know how. One gene in particular, called profilin, revealed a a very clear link between the signal and major structural rearrangements within cells that permit them to
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Contact: Russ Hodge
hodge@embl-heidelberg.de
49-6221-387252
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
30-Oct-2001

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