Expression and functional analysis of D-raf in the Drosophila EGF-receptor pathway

Abstract

The formation of a multicellular organism from a single cell requires that every cell "knows" what kind of cell that it is supposed to become. Signal transduction is one of the mechanisms used to assign cell fates. An outside signal is presented to the cell which turns on a particular pathway, the activation of specific target genes informs the cell of its fate. The Drosophila EGF receptor (DER) pathway is one such pathway, it instructs certain cells to become ventral ectoderm cells. Drosophila raf (D-raf) is believed to be a member of the early DER signal transduction pathway that determines ventral cell fates.

The goal of this project is to study the characteristics of D-rafs regulation in the DER pathway. Wild-type and six modified forms of D-raf were tested for their activity in the DER pathway. Results were compared to D-rafs activity in the Torso pathway. Differences between the pathways may offer insight on how the same signal transduction cassette (Perrimon, 1993) can be used during different times during development to specify a diverse range of cellular fates.