Pavel Tomancak Group

Helena Jambor, Pavel Mejstrik, Diana Selig, Jens Schmiedel, David Seniuk

I established, in the past, large-scale database on gene expression patterns during Drosophila embryogenesis on the tissue level (Tomancak et al. 2002, 2007). In collaboration with Eric Lecuyer and Henry Krause, we extended this analysis to reveal widespread occurrence of sub-cellular RNA localization in the early Drosophila development (I contributed exclusively to the bioinformatics of this project) (Lecuyer et al. 2007).

In Dresden we further expanded the systematic surveys of gene expression patterns to larval imaginal discs. We developed a robust and efficient protocol for mass isolation of imaginal disc tissue. To date we analyzed, by RNA in situ hybridization, the expression of nearly 6000 genes and found more then 100 novel patterns in the discs. We supplement the spatial image data with quantitative measurement of gene expression using Agilent whole genome micro-array on hand sorted disc material. We are developing image analysis pipeline to categorize and analyze the disc patterns.

As a next step we perform such genome-wide in situ analysis in Drosophila ovaries, using fluorescent RNA in situ method to reveal RNA localization in both the germ-line somatic epithelial cells of the egg chamber. We plan to dissect RNA localization signals and evaluate on a genome wide scale the role of translational regulation in patterning of germ-line and somatic tissues with the FlyFos recombineering toolkit. All the data are or will be presented to the scientific community via publicly accessible web interfaces (see open access tab).

collaborators: Eric Lecuyer (IRCM Montreal), Henry Krause (University of Toronto) and Christian Dahmann (MPI-CBG)

funding: MPI-CBG, disc project - DFG