Genome-wide analysis of gene expression in imaginal discs Drosophila melanogaster

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The regulation of gene expression is pivotal to the specification of cell fate and tissue differentiation in developing animals. Thus, the determination of expression patterns of all genes within an organism will be fundamental to the understanding of the regulatory network underlying its development. One of us (PT) has recently generated a large collection of RNA probes to determine by RNA in situ hybridization the expression patterns of 7590 (out of a total of about 14.000) genes in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo. This analysis has revealed a great variety of expression patterns reflecting the cellular complexity of the embryo. Here, we propose to use our large collection of RNA probes to comprehensively determine gene expression patterns in larval imaginal discs, simple epithelia that are frequently used as model tissues to study developmental mechanisms. Our aims are twofold: First, the broad aims are to provide an unbiased overview of gene expression regulation in an epithelial tissue undergoing patterning decisions and to decipher the regulatory network underlying its development. Second, our more specific aim is to identify, based on their expression pattern, novel target genes of the Hedgehog signal transduction pathway. The Hedgehog signaling pathway plays central role in imaginal disc patterning, it is evolutionary conserved and plays important regulatory roles also during vertebrate development. Its mis-regulation is associated with cancers in humans.