[A genetic system for somatic and germinal lineage tracing in the Drosophila melanogaster gonads]

Significant progress in the developmental biology of Drosophila is largely due to the improvement of methods of genetic manipulation and, in particular, development of ways to create mosaic organisms. The main characteristic of the mosaic organisms is the presence of genetically different populations of cells. For example, some tissues express a transgenic reporter gene that is absent in other cells of the body. This principle is used in a variety of the methods with the common name lineage tracing. The essence of these approaches is to perform the targeted changes in the genetic apparatus of progenitor cells that give rise to cell lines or organs and tissues. Genetic modification in progenitor cells, such as the ability to express a fluorescent protein, will be inherited by the next cell generations, and, as a result, the entire cell line or tissue will have a tag, which distinguishes it from the rest of the body. The lineage tracing methods allow tracking the cell generations, studying the cell proliferation process, tracing their origin and investigating the function of genes of interest in the development of a single tissue or organ. We have designed an approach to selectively label germ line or somatic cells in the gonads of Drosophila.