The molecular mechanism to determine the specific periods of development and its control in Drosophila

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25440110
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Developmental biology
• Research Institution: Okayama University
• Principal Investigator: UEDA HITOSHI 岡山大学, 自然科学研究科, 教授 (60201349)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 生物タイマー / 変態 / エクダイソン / ショウジョウバエ / 蛹 / FTZ-F1 / Blimp-1 / Shade

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We showed biological timer system to determine pupation timing in molecular level in Drosophila melanogaster. We demonstrate that the ecdysone-20-monooxygenase, Shade, determines the pupation timing by converting E to 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) in the fat body, which is the organ that senses nutritional status. The timing of shade expression is determined by its transcriptional activator βFTZ-F1. The βFTZ-F1 gene is activated after a decline in the expression of its transcriptional repressor Blimp-1, which is temporally expressed around puparium formation in response to a high titer of 20E. These results suggest that fat body may determine pupation timing by transducing the signal of nutritional information to the identified timer system.
In addition, we showed that the expression timing of FTZ-F1 plays important role for the determination of the 3rd instar period.

Free Research Field

発生生物学