White-Cooper, Helen - Cardiff University

研究领域

Developmental Genetics - Regulation of Gene Expression in Drosophila Spermatogenesis Cell differentiation is driven by co-ordinated changes in the gene expression profile of the cell: some genes are switched on, others are switched off. The mature sperm is a highly specialised cell (nearly 2mm long), whose formation from a simple primary spermatocyte involves meiosis to form round spermatids, followed by complex changes in cell architecture to form the final elongated motile sperm. During spermatogenesis there is a dramatic switch in the gene expression profile of male germ-line cells: as they enter the primary spermatocyte stage they activate transcription of a large set of genes required for sperm production. We have identified a set of proteins, encoded by the meiotic arrest genes, that work together to activate this transcriptional programme, and are investigating the composition, activity and evolution of this complex. We recently discovered that another small set of genes is transcribed after meiosis, and that these late transcribed mRNAs localise to a discrete region of the cell. We are studying their transcriptional control, and the mRNA localisation mechanism. Continued production of sperm is maintained via a stem cell system, and we are characterising a transcription factor required for stem cell maintenance.

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Sutton, E.et al. 2016. Identification of genes for engineering the male germline of Aedes aegypti and Ceratitis capitata. BMC Genomics 17, article number: 948. (10.1186/s12864-016-3280-3) pdf Lowe, N.et al. 2014. Analysis of the expression patterns, subcellular localisations and interaction partners of Drosophila proteins using a pigP protein trap library. Development 141(20), pp. 3994-4005. (10.1242/dev.111054) Laktionov, P.et al. 2014. Transcription factor comr acts as a direct activator in the genetic program controlling spermatogenesis in D. melanogaster. Molekuliarnaia biologiia 48(1), pp. 153-165. Lakitionov, P.et al. 2014. Transcription factor Comr acts as a direct activator in the genetic program controlling spermatogenesis in D. melanogaster. Molecular Biology 48(1), pp. 130-140. (10.1134/S0026893314010087) Caporilli, S.et al. 2013. The RNA export factor, Nxt1, is required for tissue specific transcriptional regulation. PLOS Genetics 9(6), article number: e1003526. (10.1371/journal.pgen.1003526) pdf White-Cooper, H. 2012. Tissue, cell type and stage-specific ectopic gene expression and RNAi induction in the Drosophila testis. Spermatogenesis 2(1), pp. 11-22. (10.4161/spmg.19088) Doggett, K.et al. 2011. Wake-up-call, a lin-52 paralogue, and always early, a lin-9 homologue physically interact, but have opposing functions in regulating testis-specific gene expression. Developmental Biology 355(2), pp. 381-393. (10.1016/j.ydbio.2011.04.030) White-Cooper, H. and Davidson, I. 2011. Unique aspects of transcription regulation in male germ cells. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 3(7), article number: a002626. (10.1101/cshperspect.a002626) Miles, A.et al. 2010. OpenFlyData: An exemplar data web integrating gene expression data on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Biomedical Informatics 43(5), pp. 752-761. (10.1016/j.jbi.2010.04.004) White-Cooper, H. and Bausek, N. 2010. Evolution and spermatogenesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences 365(1546), pp. 1465-1480. (10.1098/rstb.2009.0323) Fu, G.et al. 2010. Female-specific flightless phenotype for mosquito control. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107(10), pp. 4550-4554. (10.1073/pnas.1000251107) Zhao, J.et al. 2010. FlyTED: The Drosophila testis gene expression database. Nucleic Acids Research 38(S1), pp. D710-D715. (10.1093/nar/gkp1006)