University Archives

A conditional Flp/FRT EMS mutagenesis screen was conducted in the D. melanogaster adult mosaic eye to look for regulators of the cell cycle, cell division, and tissue development. The starting chromosome for this screen harbored an allele of Dark82 that blocks the canonical apoptosis pathway in the mosaic mutant tissue. The screen identified secondary mutations that disrupted the cell growth and developmental patterning in the adult eye. One mutant from the screen, C.3.3, was characterized by having a reduction in the ratio of mutant tissue to wild type tissue in the mosaic eye. Undergraduates in the Fly-CURE consortium at Loyola Marymount University and Nevada State University identified two distinct lethal mutations on the right side of chromosome 2.  The lethal mutations were further mapped to specific genes, Rpe and Nup75. Here we identify Rpe  and Dark82 are responsible for the C.3.3 mosaic eye phenotype. Using recombination, we found that Rpe and Dark82, had a similar phenotype to C.3.3 overall (Dark82, Nup75, and Rpe) while Nup75, Dark82 mosaic eye had a total loss of wild type tissue. This suggests Rpe is the overall driver of the C.3.3 phenotype through a possible epistatic mechanism. Molecular studies are currently being run on mutant Nup75 and Rpe to better understand the interplay between multiple mutants in the developing Drosophila eye.