Akhila Rajan

Contact Information

Research Interests

Adult peripheral nervous system (PNS) development of Drosophila is an excellent model system to address a number of fundamental biological questions concerning cell fate specification. A clear understanding of this process is significant because a number of developing vertebrate tissue systems, such as the hematopoeitic and the central and peripheral nervous systems, generate multiple cell types from a single precursor via iterative cell divisions. I am interested in identifying novel genes involved in the process of cell fate specification. To this end, An-Chi Tien and I performed a mosaic screen using the FLP/FRT system to generate head specific mitotic clones of EMS induced mutations in a Minute/+ background. We screened 57,000 F1 flies for bristle aberrations on chromosome arm 3L. We then re-screened the mutant stocks with Ubx-FLP which induces mitotic clones in the thorax. Our complementation data indicates that we have isolated 15 novel complementation groups, and we are currently performing initial phenotypic characterization and mapping of these genes.

Publications

Tien AC*, Rajan A*, Schulze KL, Ryoo HD, Acar M, Steller H, Bellen HJ (2008) Ero1L, a thiol oxidase, is required for Notch signaling through cysteine bridge formation of the Lin12-Notch repeats in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Cell Biology 182:1113-1125. (*equal contribution)

Acar M, Jafar-Nejad H, Takeuchi H, Rajan A, Ibrani D, Rana NA, Pan H, Haltiwanger RS, Bellen HJ (2007) Rumi, a CAP10 domain protein, is a glycosyltransferase that modifies Notch and is required for Notch signaling. Cell 132:247-258.

Ohyama T, Verstreken P, Ly CV, Rosenmund T, Rajan A, Tien AC, Haueter C, Schulze KL, Bellen HJ (2007) Huntingtin-interacting protein 14, a palmitoyl transferase required for exocytosis and targeting of CSP to synaptic vesicles. Journal of Cell Biology 179:1481-1496.