The 8th Annual

NC State University

Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium

 

Howard Hughes Research Scholars (HHRS) abstracts


Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the corresponding author.

 

 
 
 

 

Student Author(s): 

Hysong, Lauren H.

Home Institution:

NCSU

Program:

Howard Hughes Research Scholars (HHRS)

College:

CALS

Department(s):

Genetics

Research Mentor(s): 

Pat A. Estes/Genetics

Title of Presentation:

Comparison of Gene Expression in the Embryonic and Adult CNS of Drosophila melanogaster

 

 

The formation of the central and peripheral nervous systems are very complex components of our maturation. The nervous system is the body’s control center for all our biological processes, vision, emotions, language and our higher intellectual properties.  The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal organism to study CNS development for a few reasons.  The genome of Drosophila is sequenced, the fly has a rapid, approximate two-week life cycle, and genes can easily be identified and studied.  Moreover, many human disease genes have orthologs in Drosophila.  We study the Drosophila CNS midline, a cluster of cells crucial to the formation of the central nervous system during embryonic development.  To help understand how cells in the nervous system are generated, we study the midline gene regulation, using two approaches.  First, we identify and dissect regulatory regions of genes expressed in neurons or glia in both embryonic and adult central nervous system.  Second, we compare the distribution and function of key developmental proteins in these tissues.  Results on genes such as zinc finger homeodomain 1, liprin gamma and tango will be presented.  This research is designed to reveal how genes control nervous system development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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