Identifying Regulators of the Wnt Pathway Using a Genetic Screen in D. melanogaster

Nicole Engelhardt, Vassar College ’11 and Prof. Jennifer Kennell

Communication between cells through signal transduction cascades is crucial for the development and survival of multicellular organisms. We studied the Wnt pathway, an important signaling pathway in animals that controls the transcription of many developmental genes. However, temporal and spatial regulation of this pathway is not fully understood. A genetic screen was performed with the goal of finding new genes that regulate the pathway in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Transgenic fly lines were generated to randomly misexpress genes. These genes were then screened for their ability to negatively regulate the Wnt pathway. We performed inverse PCR to determine the identity of a few of the 78 potential Wnt regulators found in this screen. In the future we plan to study more in depth the role of these genes in Wnt signaling.