Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 30, 2026

Assaying Blood Cell Populations of the Drosophila melanogaster Larva
Published on: November 11, 2015
Transcriptional regulation of eater gene expression in Drosophila blood cells
Paul T Kroeger1, Tsuyoshi Tokusumi, Robert A Schulz
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA.
Abstract:
Eater is a transmembrane protein that mediates phagocytosis in Drosophila. eater was identified in a microarray analysis of genes downregulated in S2 cells, in which Serpent had been knocked down by RNAi. The gene was shown to be expressed predominantly in plasmatocytes after embryonic development. We have extensively analyzed the transcriptional enhancer controlling eater expression with the following findings: the enhancer reproduces the plasmatocyte expression pattern of the gene as verified by anti-P1 antibody staining and a 526-basepair DNA region is active in lymph gland and hemolymph plasmatocytes. This DNA contains several GATA elements that serve as putative-binding sites for Serpent. Site-directed mutagenesis of two of these GATA sites abolishes eater expression in both lymph gland and hemolymph plasmatocytes. This suggests that Serpent regulates eater expression by binding these GATA sites, which was confirmed by gel shift analysis. These analyses allowed us to use eater-Gal4 to force plasmatocyte to lamellocyte differentiation.
More Related Videos
10:01An Efficient Strategy for Generating Tissue-specific Binary Transcription Systems in Drosophila by Genome Editing
Published on: September 19, 2018
10:31The Drosophila Imaginal Disc Tumor Model: Visualization and Quantification of Gene Expression and Tumor Invasiveness Using Genetic Mosaics
Published on: October 6, 2016
Related Concept Videos
Cell Specific Gene Expression
Position-effect Variegation
Master Transcription Regulators