Identifying novel regulators of specification, migration, and differentiation of muscle precursor cells in Drosophila

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Manfred Frasch; Dr. Ingolf Reim
• Subject Area: Developmental Biology
• Term: from 2009 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 116674179

The fruit fly Drosophila has proved to be a very valuable genetic model system for studying the regulation of muscle development. In recent years, considerable progress has been made in unraveling the regulatory mechanisms that control specific steps of embryonic muscle development and generate elaborate and largely invariable patterns of muscle fibers in this organism. In particular, a number of genes and developmental mechanisms have been discovered that are involved in specification of individual muscle founder cells, myoblast fusion, and stable attachment of the muscles. However, many interesting and important aspects of regulation during each step of muscle development, including those during specification, migration, and morphogenesis, are still unknown, as are most of the regulators of the special behavior of the stem cell-like muscle precursor cells that are set aside to generate adult skeletal muscles. In this proposal, we aim to perform forward genetic screens to identify and characterize new genes that control different steps and aspects of muscle development in the embryo, and thereby expect to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of these processes in Drosophila and of related processes in other species

• DFG Programme: Research Grants