| Home  | About ScienceAsia  | Publication charge  | Advertise with us  | Subscription for printed version  | Contact us  
Editorial Board
Journal Policy
Instructions for Authors
Online submission
Author Login
Reviewer Login
Volume 50 Number 1
Volume 49 Number 6
Volume 49 Number 5
Volume 49S Number 1
Volume 49 Number 4
Volume 49 Number 3
Earlier issues
Back

Research Article

ScienceAsia 31 (2005): 005-011 |doi: 10.2306/scienceasia1513-1874.2005.31.005


Preliminary Studies on the Role of ten-a during CNS and Eye Development of Drosophila


Lertluk Ngernsiri,a#* Nora Fascetti,b# Wijit Wisoruma and Stefan Baumgartnerb

 
ABSTRACT: ten-a is one of the two Drosophila genes whose products belong to the Ten M protein family. The Ten-a protein is a type II transmembrane protein. This protein was found to be mainly expressed in the CNS of the embryo and in the compound eye of the pupa. No report about the function of ten-a has been published to date. Here, we showed, in a preliminary report, that ten-a has a function in the development of the CNS and in the compound eye. To study the function of ten-a during CNS development, doublestranded RNA interference (dsRNAi) experiments were performed. We found that embryos without ten-a protein have defects in the commissures, suggesting that ten-a is likely to be involved in commissure formation. Furthermore, to study the function of ten-a in the eye, the Gal4/UAS system was used to overexpress ten-a at different stages of eye development. We found that extra amounts of ten-a can interfere with the development of the eye. Flies overexpressing ten-a showed eye defects such as small and rough eyes, and black ommatidia. The results indicated that ten-a may be a novel gene involved in eye morphogenesis.

Download PDF


a Department of Genetics, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand.
b Section for Developmental Biology, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Lund University, BMC B13, Lund 22184, Sweden.

# Both authors contributed equally to the work.
* Corresponding author, E-mail: khawlln@yahoo.com

Received 23 Apr 2004, Accepted 10 Nov 2004