Advanced confocal microscopy
See our microscopy facility page for details, training information, and sample images.
Cell structure and proliferation: Tyrosine Phosphatase Pez
PTP-Pez is a FERM domain-containing scaffold protein that is conserved from flies to humans. It acts as a tumor suppressor in the Hippo/Yorkie pathway. See:
Poernbacher I, Baumgartner R, Marada SK, Edwards K, and Stocker H. 2012. Drosophila Pez acts in Hippo signaling to restrict intestinal stem cell proliferation. Current Biology 22:389-96. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.019 [PMID:22305752]
Bretscher, A., K. Edwards, and R.G. Fehon. 2002. ERM proteins and merlin: integrators at the cell cortex. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biol. 3:586-599. [Review] [PMID: 12154370]
Edwards, K.A., T. Davis, D. Marcey, J. Kurihara, and D. Yamamoto. 2001. Comparative analysis of the Band 4.1/ezrin-related protein tyrosine phosphatase Pez from two Drosophila species: implications for structure and function. Gene 275:195-205. [PMID: 11587846]
Hostile takeover system for inducible protein traps
The Hostile Takeover (Hto) system allows the investigator to both tag and control the expression of an endogenous protein in vivo. See the paper, Singari et al. 2014. And click here for the Hto website where you can see the design of the system and phenotypes of the available fly lines.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of uncoated insects
SEM is traditionally performed on metal coated samples. We refined the Low Vacuum SEM technique to allow the investigator to obtain high quality images just by placing an insect on a stub and scanning it; this cuts down the prep time to about 5 minutes. Our method permits SEM to be used for large-scale imaging projects such as genetic screens. Click for details.