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In multicellular organisms, cells pack together to form tissues of intricate and well defined morphology. How such cell-packing geometries arise is an important open question in biology, because the functionality of many differentiated tissues depends on their reliable formation. We show that combining adhesive forces due to E- and N-cadherin with a quantitative description of cell membrane elasticity in an interfacial energy model explains not only the qualitative neighbor relations, but also the detailed geometry of a tissue. The characteristic cellular geometries in the eyes of both wild-type Drosophila and genetic mutants are accurately reproduced by using a fixed set of few, physically motivated parameters. The model predicts adhesion strengths in the eye epithelium, quantifies their role relative to membrane elasticity, and reveals how simple minimization of interfacial energy can give rise to complex geometric patterns of important biological functionality. cadherin | Drosophila | interfacial energy | morphogenesis | Surface Evolver

Because of the resemblance of many epithelial tissues to densely packed soap bubbles, it has been suggested that surface minimization, which drives soap bubble packing, could be governing cell packing as well. We test this by modeling the shape of the cells in a Drosophila retina ommatidium. We use the observed configurations and shapes in wild-type flies, as well as in flies with different numbers of cells per ommatidia, and mutants with cells where E-or N-cadherin is either deleted or misexpressed. We find that surface minimization is insufficient to model the experimentally observed shapes and packing of the cells based on their cadherin expression. We then consider a model in which adhesion leads to a surface increase, balanced by cell cortex contraction. Using the experimentally observed distributions of E- and N-cadherin, we simulate the packing and cell shapes in the wild-type eye. Furthermore, by changing only the corresponding parameters, this model can describe the mutants with different numbers of cells or changes in cadherin expression. cell shape | surface mechanics | Cellular Potts model

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small RNAs that silence gene expression. In animal cells, miRNAs bind to the 3' untranslated regions of specific mRNAs and inhibit their translation. Although some targets of a handful of miRNAs are known, the number and identities of mRNA targets in the genome are uncertain, as are the developmental functions of miRNA regulation. To identify the global range of miRNA-regulated genes during oocyte maturation of Drosophila, we compared the proteome from wild-type oocytes with the proteome from oocytes lacking the dicer-1 gene, which is essential for biogenesis of miRNAs. Most identified proteins appeared to be subject to translation inhibition. Their transcripts contained putative binding sites in the 3' untranslated region for a subset of miRNAs, based on computer modeling. The fraction of genes subject to direct and indirect repression by miRNAs during oocyte maturation appears to be small (4%), and the genes tend to share a common functional relationship in protein biogenesis and turnover. The preponderance of genes that control global protein abundance suggests this process is under tight control by miRNAs at the onset of fertilization. translation control

Ras CAAX (C = cysteine, A = aliphatic amino acid, and X = any amino acid) peptidomimetic inhibitors of farnesyl protein transferase suppress Ras-dependent cell transformation by preventing farnesylation of the Ras oncoprotein. These compounds are potential anticancer agents for tumors associated with Ras mutations. The peptidomimetic FTI-254 was tested for Ras1-inhibiting activity in whole animals by injection of activated [Ras1.sup.val12] Drosophila larvae. FTI-254 decreased the ability of [Ras1.sup.val12] to form supernumerary R7 photoreceptor cells in the compound eye of transformed flies. In contrast, it had no effect on the related supernumerary R7 phenotypes of flies transformed with either the activated sevenless receptor tyrosine kinase, Raf kinase, or a chimeric [Ras1.sup.val12] protein that is membrane associated through myristylation instead of isoprenylation. Therefore, FTI-254 acts as an isoprenylation inhibitor to selectively inhibit [Ras1.sup.val12] signaling activity in a whole-animal model system.

Genetic screening of mutations that weaken the activity of sina gene in Drosophila eye development reveals nine genes whose products are crucial for normal sina activity. The Sevenless-Ras pathway signaling in R7 requires three of these genes, one of which is for the rolled locus (rl). The rl gene encodes a mitogen-induced protein kinase that is required for Ras signaling.

Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) are nanostructures formed by chemically conjugating short linear strands of oligonucleotides to a nanoparticle template. When made with modified small interfering RNA (siRNA) duplexes, SNAs act as single-entity transfection and gene silencing agents and have been used as lead therapeutic constructs in several disease models. However, the manner in which modified siRNA duplex strands that comprise the SNA lead to gene silencing is not understood. Herein, a systematic analysis of siRNA biochemistry involving SNAs shows that Dicer cleaves the modified siRNA duplex from the surface of the nanoparticle, and the liberated siRNA subsequently functions in a way that is dependent on the canonical RNA interference mechanism. By leveraging this understanding, a class of SNAs was chemically designed which increases the siRNA content by an order of magnitude through covalent attachment of each strand of the duplex. As a consequence of increased nucleic acid content, this nanostructure architecture exhibits less cell cytotoxicity than conventional SNAs without a decrease in siRNA activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RNA silencing (RNAI) induced by virus-derived double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which is in a sense regarded as a pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) of viruses, is a general plant defense mechanism. To counteract this defense, plant viruses express RNA silencing suppressors (RSSs), many of which bind to dsRNA and attenuate RNAi. We showed that the tobacco calmodulin-like protein, rgs-CaM, counterattacked viral RSSs by binding to their dsRNA-binding domains and sequestering them from inhibiting RNAi. Autophagy-like protein degradation seemed to operate to degrade RSSs with the sacrifice of rgs-CaM. These RSSs could thus be regarded as secondary viral PAMPs. This study uncovered a unique defense system in which an rgs-CaM-mediated countermeasure against viral RSSs enhanced host antiviral RNAi in tobacco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]