Characterization of Guanine Exchange Factors for Rho GTPases in Drosophila

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

During the formation of a complex pluricellular organism, some cells migrate through tissues to home at a precise place. Cell migration also occurs in some cancers, causing the formation of metastasis. These cell migrations can occur as single cells and as a group of cells and require a guidance system and the machinery to response to guidance cues. Small GTPases of the Rho family are key regulators of this machinery by modifying the internal structure of the cell. Rho GTPases are like switches that are turned "on" or "off" by guidance cues. A class of regulators of small GTPases named GEFs are "switching on" the Rho GTPases. In this project, we want to characterize all the RhoGEFs in a in vivo model of collective cell migration. For this, we will take advantage of border cell migration in Drosophila, a powerful model system. In there, we will study the role of every single Rho GEF and we will image by time-lapse microscopy the outcome on cell migration of the depletion of these GEFs. Furthermore, we will determine where they localize in the group of cell. Altogether, this exhaustive study of GEF proteins will provide us with important information on the regulation of collective cell migration which is important for our general understanding of this process. In addition, it might unravel new therapeutic strategies.