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A transposable element is a nucleic acid sequence in DNA that can change its position within a genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations and altering the cell's genetic identity and genome size. Transposition often results in duplication of the same genetic material. In the human genome, L1 and Alu elements are two examples. Barbara McClintock's discovery of them earned her a Nobel Prize in 1983. Its importance in personalized medicine is becoming increasingly relevant, as well as gaining more attention in data analytics given the difficulty of analysis in very high dimensional spaces.
Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly", "pomace fly", or "banana fly". Starting with Charles W. Woodworth's 1901 proposal of the use of this species as a model organism, D. melanogaster continues to be widely used for biological research in genetics, physiology, microbial pathogenesis, and life history evolution. As of 2017, six Nobel Prizes have been awarded to drosophilists for their work using the insect.
The grey column refers to a somewhat ridge-shaped mass of grey matter in the spinal cord. This presents as three columns: the anterior grey column, the posterior grey column, and the lateral grey column, all of which are visible in cross-section of the spinal cord.
A mechanoreceptor, also called mechanoceptor, is a sensory receptor that responds to mechanical pressure or distortion. Mechanoreceptors are innervated by sensory neurons that convert mechanical pressure into electrical signals that, in animals, are sent to the central nervous system.
Mosaicism or genetic mosaicism is a condition in which a multicellular organism possesses more than one genetic line as the result of genetic mutation. This means that various genetic lines resulted from a single fertilized egg. Mosaicism is one of several possible causes of chimerism, wherein a single organism is composed of cells with more than one distinct genotype.
DSCAM and Dscam are both abbreviations for Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule. In humans, DSCAM refers to a gene that encodes one of several protein isoforms.
cGMP-dependent protein kinase or protein kinase G (PKG) is a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase that is activated by cGMP. It phosphorylates a number of biologically important targets and is implicated in the regulation of smooth muscle relaxation, platelet function, sperm metabolism, cell division, and nucleic acid synthesis.
Octopamine (molecular formula C8H11NO2; also known as OA, and also norsynephrine, para-octopamine and others) is an organic chemical closely related to norepinephrine, and synthesized biologically by a homologous pathway. Octopamine is often considered the major "fight-or-flight" neurohormone of invertebrates. Its name is derived from the fact that it was first identified in the salivary glands of the octopus.
Chordotonal organs are stretch receptor organs found only in insects and crustaceans. They are located at most joints and are made up of clusters of scolopidia that either directly or indirectly connect two joints and sense their movements relative to one another. They can have both extero- and proprioceptive functions, for example sensing auditory stimuli or leg movement. The word was coined by Vitus Graber in 1882, though he interpreted them as being stretched between two points like a string, sensing vibrations through resonance.
Mosaic analysis with a repressible cell marker, or MARCM, is a genetics technique for creating individually labeled homozygous cells in an otherwise heterozygous Drosophila melanogaster. It has been a crucial tool in studying the development of the Drosophila nervous system. This technique relies on recombination during mitosis mediated by FLP-FRT recombination. As one copy of a gene, provided by the balancer chromosome, is often enough to rescue a mutant phenotype, MARCM clones can be used to study a mutant phenotype in an otherwise wildtype animal.
mir-279 is a short RNA molecule found in Drosophila melanogaster that belongs to a class of molecules known as microRNAs. microRNAs are ~22nt-long non-coding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate the expression of genes, often by binding to the 3' untranslated region of mRNA, targeting the transcript for degradation. miR-279 has diverse tissue-specific functions in the fly, influencing developmental processes related to neurogenesis and oogenesis, as well as behavioral processes related to circadian rhythms. The varied roles of mir-279, both in the developing and adult fly, highlight the utility of microRNAs in regulating unique biological processes.
Cycle (cyc) is a gene in Drosophila melanogaster that encodes the CYCLE protein (CYC). The Cycle gene (cyc) is expressed in a variety of cell types in a circadian manner. It is involved in controlling both the sleep-wake cycle and circadian regulation of gene expression by promoting transcription in a negative feedback mechanism. The cyc gene is located on the left arm of chromosome 3 and codes for a transcription factor containing a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) domain and a PAS domain. The 2.17 kb cyc gene is divided into 5 coding exons totaling 1,625 base pairs which code for 413 aminos acid residues. Currently 19 alleles are known for cyc. Orthologs performing the same function in other species include ARNTL and ARNTL2.
Michael Morris Rosbash is an American geneticist and chronobiologist. Rosbash is a professor and researcher at Brandeis University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rosbash's research group cloned the Drosophila period gene in 1984 and proposed the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop for circadian clocks in 1990. In 1998, they discovered the cycle gene, clock gene, and cryptochrome photoreceptor in Drosophila through the use of forward genetics, by first identifying the phenotype of a mutant and then determining the genetics behind the mutation. Rosbash was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. Along with Michael W. Young and Jeffrey C. Hall, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".
A Drosophila connectome is a list of neurons in the Drosophila melanogaster nervous system, and the chemical synapses between them. The fly's nervous system consists of the brain plus the ventral nerve cord, and both are known to differ considerably between male and female. Dense connectomes have been completed for the female adult brain, the male nerve cord, and the female larval stage. The available connectomes show only chemical synapses - other forms of inter-neuron communication such as gap junctions or neuromodulators are not represented. Drosophila is the most complex creature with a connectome, which had only been previously obtained for three other simpler organisms, first C. elegans. The connectomes have been obtained by the methods of neural circuit reconstruction, which over the course of many years worked up through various subsets of the fly brain to the almost full connectomes that exist today.
Lamina monopolar cells are a class of neurons in the most peripheral neuropil of the arthropod visual system, the lamina. Most insects, including flies, have five distinct classes lamina monopolar cells: L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5. L1, L2, L3, receive direct synaptic input from the photoreceptors in the lamina, and send axons into the second-order neuropil of the visual system, the medulla.
Q-system is a genetic tool that allows to express transgenes in a living organism. Originally the Q-system was developed for use in the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster, and was rapidly adapted for use in cultured mammalian cells, zebrafish, worms and mosquitoes. The Q-system utilizes genes from the qa cluster of the bread fungus Neurospora crassa, and consists of four components: the transcriptional activator (QF/QF2/QF2w), the enhancer QUAS, the repressor QS, and the chemical de-repressor quinic acid. Similarly to GAL4/UAS and LexA/LexAop, the Q-system is a binary expression system that allows to express reporters or effectors in a defined subpopulation of cells with the purpose of visualising these cells or altering their function. In addition, GAL4/UAS, LexA/LexAop and the Q-system function independently of each other and can be used simultaneously to achieve a desired pattern of reporter expression, or to express several reporters in different subsets of cells.
Paul Hardin is an American scientist in the field of chronobiology and a pioneering researcher in the understanding of circadian clocks in flies and mammals. Hardin currently serves as a distinguished professor in the biology department at Texas A&M University. He is best known for his discovery of circadian oscillations in the mRNA of the clock gene Period (per), the importance of the E-Box in per activation, the interlocked feedback loops that control rhythms in activator gene transcription, and the circadian regulation of olfaction in Drosophila melanogaster. Born in a suburb of Chicago, Matteson, Illinois, Hardin currently resides in College Station, Texas, with his wife and three children.
Barry James Thompson is an Australian and British developmental biologist and cancer biologist. Thompson is known for identifying genes, proteins and mechanisms involved in epithelial polarity, morphogenesis and cell signaling via the Wnt and Hippo signaling pathways, which have key roles in human cancer.
Reinhard F. Stocker is a Swiss biologist. He pioneered the analysis of the sense of smell and taste in higher animals, using the fly Drosophila melanogaster as a study case. He provided a detailed account of the anatomy and development of the olfactory system, in particular across metamorphosis, for which he received the Théodore-Ott-Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007, and pioneered the use of larval Drosophila for the brain and behavioural sciences.
The femoral chordotonal organ is a group of mechanosensory neurons found in an insect leg that detects the movements and the position of the femur/tibia joint. It is thought to function as a proprioceptor that is critical for precise control of leg position by sending the information regarding the femur/tibia joint to the motor circuits in the ventral nerve cord and the brain
References
- ↑ Vigier, P (1909). "Mecanisme de la synthese des impressions lumineuses recueilles par les yeux composes des Dipteres". C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris. 148: 1221–1223.
- ↑ Cajal, S.R.; Sanchez, D. (1915). "Contribución al conocimiento de los centros nerviosos de los insectos. Parte I Retina y centros opticos". Trab. Lab. Invest. Biol. Univ. Madrid. 13: 1–168. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.37839.
- ↑ Fischbach, KF; Dittrich, AP (1989). "The optic lobe of Drosophila melanogaster. I. A Golgi analysis of wild-type structure. Cell Tissue Res". Cell and Tissue Research. 258 (3): 441–475. doi:10.1007/bf00218858. S2CID 9680961.
- ↑ Tuthill, JC; Nern, A; Holtz, SL; Rubin, GM; Reiser, MB (July 10, 2013). "Contributions of the 12 neuron classes in the fly lamina to motion vision". Neuron. 79 (1): 128–40. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.024. PMC 3806040 . PMID 23849200.
- ↑ Meinertzhagen, IA; O'Neil, SD (March 8, 1991). "Synaptic organization of columnar elements in the lamina of the wild type in Drosophila melanogaster". The Journal of Comparative Neurology. 305 (2): 232–63. doi:10.1002/cne.903050206. PMID 1902848. S2CID 35301798.
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