Embryo cells from Drosophila

Horikawa and Fox (1964) isolated single cells from Drosophila embryos and were able to propagate these with the diploid chromosome number for years. 

Becker PB, Wu C (1992) Cell-free system for assembly of transcriptionally repressed chromatin from Drosophila embryos. Mol Cell Biol 12 2241-2249... 

Unless otherwise noted, all procedures should be performed at 4°C or on ice. Nuclear purification is the first step in preparation of karyoskeletal protein-enriched fractions from Drosophila cells and tissues. Two techniques have been used extensively in our laboratory. The first, as detailed previously in Fisher et al. (1982), is particularly useful for preparation of undegraded karyoskeletal proteins from embryos without regard for their biological activity. 

Ulitzur, N.. and Gruenbaum, Y. (1989). Nuclear envelope assembly around sperm chromatin in cell-free preparations from Drosophila embryos. FEBS Lett. 259,113-116. 

Becker, P. B., Tsukiyama, T and Wu, C. (1994). Chromatin assembly extracts from Drosophila embryos. Methods Cell Biol. 44, 207-223. 

In addition, we present methods for the preparation of HeLa cell extracts that can support import in vitro. In general, we find for both proteins and snRNPs that the Xenopus egg extract is the most efficient in terms of the speed of nuclear import and the final level of intranuclear accumulation. The Xenopus oocyte extract, HeLa cell extract, and reticulocyte lysates are generally less efficient in our hands. We have not been able to reconstitute nuclear import using extracts from Drosophila early embryos (C. Dingwall, unpublished). 

In this chapter, we have reviewed our current imderstanding of how lumens form and are maintained in the dorsal vessel, salivary gland and trachea of the Drosophila embryo. Lumen formation in the Drosophila embryonic salivary gland and primary branches of the trachea occurs concomitantly with invagination of the salivary gland and tracheal cells from the embryo surface. Thus, it is not entirely surprising that lumen size control in these two epithelial-based organs share similar cellular and molecular mechanisms, such as the roles... 

Vincent J.P. and Lawrence P.A. 1994 Drosophila wingless sustains engrailed expression only in adjoining cells Evidence from mosaic embryos. Cell 77 909-915. 

Seecof R.L. 1979. Preparation of cell cultures from Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Tissue Culture Assoc. Manual 5 1019-1022. 

Maroto F.G. and Sierra J.M. 1989. Purification and characterization of mRNA cap-binding protein from Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Mol. Cell. Biol. 9 2181-2190. 

Kamakaka R.T. and Kadonaga J.T. 1994. The soluble nuclear fraction, a highly efficient transcription extract from Drosophila embryos. Methods Cell Biol. 44 225-235. 

Moritz M., Braunfeld M.B., Fung J.C., Sedat J.W., Alberts B.M., and Agard D.A. 1995. Three-dimensional structural characterization of centrosomes from eiady Drosophila embryos. /. Cell Biol. 130 1149-1159. 

Evidence for the involvement of a Cdc2/Cyc B complex in the mitotic stages of germ cell development comes from studies in Drosophila. Cyc B transcripts are abundant and uniformly distributed in the early Drosophila embryo (Whitfield et al., 1989, 1990 Lehner and O Farrell, 1990b). Maternally derived Cyc B transcripts are also concentrated at the posterior pole of the oocyte. Later, during embryogenesis, Cyc B tran-... 

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