Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2017
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E84
Höfundar / Authors: Sigríður Rut Franzdóttir, Kristín E. Allison, Hörður Guðmundsson, Arnar Þór Björgvinsson, Samantha Jeng, Zophonías O. Jónsson
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Institute of Life- and Environmental Sciences and Biomedical Center, University of Iceland. Askja, Sturlugata 7, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Sigríður Rut Franzdóttir
The function of ubiquitous and essential cellular factors can be difficult to dissect as their loss is generally lethal or causes growth defects. Therefore the use of conditional loss- or gain of function systems, in vitro assays and study of protein behaviour in vivo can be fundamental for separating distinct roles and molecular function of such factors. Our group studies a couple of AAA+ ATPases in fruit flies and yeast. These proteins are highly conserved, essential and ubiquitously expressed, although expression dynamics during development are clearly seen. The proteins interact with diverse protein complexes and are required for numerous cellular processes (including mitosis), where their exact roles largely remain a mystery. In this talk I will give an overview of the current projects in our laboratory. We have performed detailed analysis of knock-down phenotypes in Drosophila melanogaster and follow-up studies are ongoing to dissect the molecular and cellular mechanisms affected. Yeast and fly strains expressing endogenously tagged proteins have been generated and will serve as tools for imaging studies on intracellular localization, interactions and dynamics in vivo, as well as for pulling down interacting proteins, RNA and DNA for further analysis.