Grant: Operating Grant

Our bodies contain a wide range of cell types that are specialized for carrying out particular functions. These cells adopt a variety of distinctive shapes, and are often organized into discrete tissues that in turn form our various organs. How these tissues acquire and maintain their appropriate architecture is a fundamental question in basic research, and understanding the mechanisms that control these processes is of great importance to our understanding of diseases, such as cancer, that are associated with a loss of normal tissue organization. We are exploring this question using Drosophila as a simple model system. Specifically, we are studying the function of the Echinoid (Ed) protein, a molecule found on the cell surface. We have shown previously that Ed plays a role in interactions between cells; when a cell with Ed on its surface touches a cell without Ed, the cells respond by changing their shape and modifying their internal cytoskeleton at the point of contact, apparently minimizing their contact. We propose that Ed acts as a molecular sensor to help cells assess their neighbors, and will study how the act of sensing that a neighboring cell is "different" affects the internal machinery of the cell. Knowledge of how shape and organization are regulated in normal tissue will contribute to our understanding of how disruption of these processes leads to disease.