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Student Class

2028

Student Affiliation

WISP Intern

First Advisor

Bing He

First Advisor Department

Department of Biological Sciences

Second Advisor

Sophia Micale

Second Advisor Department

Department of Biological Sciences

Description

Congenital birth deformities often arise during epithelial morphogenesis, displaying the need to understand the mechanisms underlying this process. Cell shape changes that mediate morphogenesis often require cell surface expansion to accommodate shifts in 3D tissue geometry. Previous work has identified Four Wheel Drive (Fwd), a Golgi-localized phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase (PI4K) IIIβ ortholog, as a regulator for cell surface expansion during Drosophila ventral furrow formation, a well-characterized model for epithelial folding.

Intracellular trafficking affects the cell’s capacity for surface expansion, which influences tissue properties such as membrane tension. This research will investigate the potential colocalization between Fwd and Rab11, a marker for recycling endosomes. We hypothesize that Fwd and Rab11 coordinate the trans-Golgi network and recycling endosomes to promote vesicle trafficking. We will evaluate the colocalization of Fwd and Rab11 through live imaging of embryos expressing Fwd-GFP and Rab11-mCherry, image segmentation and mask creation using ilastik, and identification of Fwd and Rab11 puncta that overlap in the masks.

In parallel, the project will investigate the potential function of Fwd in regulating membrane tension through the design of a membrane tension sensor. The sensor is a fusion protein consisting of a mechanosensitive channel linked to GFP, where the fluorescence intensity of GFP is inversely correlated with membrane tension. The effects of Fwd depletion on membrane tension dynamics will be visualized by live imaging of wild-type and fwd RNAi embryos. These experiments will provide key information about the molecular role of Fwd in cell surface expansion and its effects on the tissue’s mechanical properties.

Publication Date

2025

Keywords

Drosophila, embryogenesis, ventral furrow formation, Four Wheel Drive (Fwd), PI4-Kinase, Rab11, recycling endosomes, vesicle trafficking, microscopy, membrane tension sensor

Disciplines

Cell Biology | Developmental Biology

PI4-Kinase Fwd in trafficking and cell surface expansion during early Drosophila embryogenesis

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