Date of Award

1-1-2013

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Organizational Unit

College of Natual Science and Mathematics

First Advisor

James T. Blankenship, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Dinah Loerke

Third Advisor

Scott Barbee

Keywords

Drosophila, Convergent extension, F-actin

Abstract

Convergent extension is a process that occurs in the development of a wide variety of organisms, including gastrulation in the Drosophila embryo to begin to lay out the adult body plan. In fly embryos, this is known as germband extension and is mainly driven by cell intercalation or neighbor exchange by planar polarized cell-cell interface contraction to shorten the tissue along the dorsal-ventral axis. In this thesis, I show that interface contraction consists of phases of fast interface shortening and intervals of stable interface size. My data also suggests that regulation of F-actin aggregates at these shrinking interfaces is important for appropriate biphasic interface contraction. Knock down of two F-actin regulating proteins, Dpod1 and coronin, results in aberrant interface dynamics and severe disruption of germband extension. Close examination of interface and F-actin aggregate dynamics in coronin knock down reveals that coronin is required for appropriate F-actin globule formation and interface contraction.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Ashley Motlong

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

62 p.

Discipline

Developmental biology, Cellular biology

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