The regulation of epithelial tissue structure in Drosophila

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Genome sequencing has identified all of the proteins required for making an animal. However, we are just beginning to understand how these proteins function together to do so. The most common tissue architecture in the body are the sheets of cells that form our skin and organs. How do proteins organize these sheets to form the skin, lungs, heart or stomach? My lab is addressing this fundamental question using the fruit fly as a simple model system. We can use the powerful genetic techniques available in the fly to disrupt protein function and to identify proteins important for tissue development. We couple this with advanced imaging techniques to monitor the tissues as they form and to assess the effects of disrupting protein functions. In this way, we are discovering the proteins that work together to elicit specific changes in tissue structure. By linking sets of proteins to specific tissue changes, the molecular bases of tissue changes will be defined, and thus the links between the genome and the whole animal will become clear. This is important for understanding how tissues form normally, and for understanding how they break down in diseases like cancer. It is also relevant to the engineering of tissues and organs.