Grant: Operating Grant

Understanding how cells grow and divide is a fundamental question in biology. During animal development the proper regulation of cell growth is essential for controlling organ and organism size. While in cancer, deregulated cell growth is often an early event in tumor formation. The processes that control growth are remarkably similar across different species. For example, in both humans and fruit flies similar genes regulate growth and mutations in these genes often lead to cancer. These similarities allow us to use the fruit fly as a simple, yet powerful genetic system to study what genes and molecules controls growth. We made the striking discovery that overproduction of a single molecule, called transfer RNA, can accelerate growth and increase body size in fruit flies. Transfer RNA plays a critical role in the synthesis all of the proteins and enzymes in a cell, including those essential for growth. Our goal in this grant is to understand how the production of tRNA is controlled and how increase in the production of transfer RNA can drive growth. Abnormal production of transfer RNA is often seen in cancer cells, therefore our work in fruit flies may provide clues to help us understand the runaway growth that makes this disease so devastating.