The genetic basis of the long-term maintenance of muscle function in animals.

我研究的总体目标是了解组织是如何形成的，以及一旦它们形成，它们在生物体的整个生命周期中是如何保持组织的。特别是，我的实验室利用遗传方法来解剖各种机制，以确保组织能够维持其结构，从而确保其在整个生命中发挥作用的能力。肌肉细胞在这方面特别有趣，因为它们在结构上是高度组织化的，而且寿命相对较长，这意味着它们在很长一段时间内保持结构的完整性。这是值得注意的，因为肌肉承受巨大的机械负荷，因为它经历了松弛和收缩的循环。我提议的NSERC资助的研究项目将调查肌肉细胞如何能够在生物体的整个生命周期中在持续的机械应变下维持其组织和功能。

The overall goal of my research is to understand how tissues form and once they form how they maintain their organization throughout the life of the organism. In particular my lab utilizes genetic approaches to dissect various mechanism ensure tissues are able to maintain their structure and thus their ability to function throughout life. Muscle cells are particularly interesting in this regard because they are both highly organized structurally and relatively long lived, meaning that they sustain their structural integrity for a long time. This is remarkable because muscle withstand enormous mechanical loads as the undergo cycles of relaxation and contraction. The NSERC funded research program I propose will investigate the how muscle cells are able to maintain their organization and function throughout the life of the organism while under sustained mechanical strain. Our lab uses fly muscles for our experiments since they provide an excellent, genetically tractable, in vivo model system to study muscle maintenance in the context of the whole organism. The adult musculuature of the fly is maintained for the duration of fly life, typically 4-6 weeks during during which no additional muscle cells are made. A key aim of our research is to use genetics to identify genes that are involved in muscle tissue maintenance. Previously, the main obstacle in achieving this goal has been that the complete abolition of genes that are involved in muscle maintenance often interferes with the formation of muscles in the embryo. We have recently developed a way to circumvent this problem by using novel genetic tools. We have used this approach coupled with assays that measure muscle function in the adult to screen for genes that are required for muscle tissue maintenance. We identified over 3 dozen genes that are essential to maintain muscle function in the adult muscles. My NSERC application details a set of experiments designed to obtain a thorough mechanistic understanding of how the genes identified in our screen contribute to muscle tissue maintenance.