The Drosophila melanogaster gene vasa is known to be necessary for the establishment of a functional pole plasm, as well as for the completion of oogenesis. To further elucidate its role, we have created a null mutation of the vasa gene and examined vasa-null ovaries for defects. Analysis of these ovaries has revealed that vasa is involved in various aspects of oogenesis, including the growth of germ-line cysts, oocyte differentiation, anterior-posterior egg chamber patterning, and dorsal-ventral follicle patterning. In addition, vasa-null oocytes fail to show efficient accumulation of various localized RNAs, such as Bicaudal-C, Bicaudal-D, egl, enc, orb, oskar , and nanos, but still show accumulation of gurken RNA. Interestingly, the accumulation of GURKEN protein in the oocyte is severely reduced, and that of BICAUDAL-C is substantially decreased in null mutants. These results suggest a possible role for vasa in activating translation of targeted RNAs during oogenesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20874 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Styhler, Sylvia. |
| Contributors | Lasko, Paul (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001610095, proquestno: MQ44290, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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