TY  - GEN
T1  - Analysis of extracellular matrix composition in the visceral muscles of Nidogen mutant larvae in Drosophila
AU  - Töpfer, Uwe
AU  - Holz, Anne
DO  - 10.17912/micropub.biology.000251
UR  - http://beta.micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-000251/
AB  - A group of highly conserved extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, which are enriched in basement membranes across all metazoa, form the so called ‘basement membrane tool kit’ (Hynes, 2012; Hynes and Zhao, 2000). These important components are organized in two layers connected to each other via the linker proteins Perlecan and Nidogen (Fig. 1A). The inner layer is formed by a self-assembling network of Laminin heterotrimers, consisting of an α-, β- and γ-subunit each. The outer network is composed of Collagen IV, which builds a triple helix with two α1-subunits and one α2-subunit. In Drosophila melanogaster a small set of genes encode for these components. Four genes code for Laminin subunits: two genes for α -subunits, (Laminin A, LanA, and wing blister, wb, referred to herein as ’LanWb’), and only one gene encodes for a β- (Laminin B1, LanB1) and one gene encodes an γ-subunit (Laminin B2, LanB2). Furthermore, one gene encodes for the Collagen IV subunits α1 (Collagen IV α1, Col4α1) and α2 (viking, vkg) as well as for the linker proteins Perlecan (terribly reduced optic lobes, trol) and Nidogen (Ndg). Ndg connects Laminin to the Collagen IV network via binding of Perlecan and Collagen IV to the Laminin γ-subunit, and has been suggested to play an essential role in ECM assembly (Fig. 1A; Fox et al., 1991; Hopf et al., 2001a; Mann et al., 1989; Reinhardt et al., 1993). However, in contrast to mutants of other basement membrane components in Drosophila, Ndg mutants are viable and seem not to play a role in general ECM assembly (Dai et al., 2018; Wolfstetter et al., 2019), whereas further ultrastructural analyses reveal a disrupted ECM of larval visceral muscles (Wolfstetter et al., 2019). Whether this ultrastructural alterations in the larval visceral muscles of Ndg mutants correspond to a change in distribution or assembly of other basement membrane components is not known, so we examine the protein distribution of the main ECM components in Ndg mutants in this study.
PY  - 2020
JO  - microPublication Biology
ER  -