CoinFLP: a system for efficient mosaic screening and for visualizing clonal boundaries in Drosophila

Area of Science:

• Developmental biology
• Genetics
• Molecular biology

Background:

• Mosaic screens in Drosophila have identified growth and patterning regulators.
• Previous methods struggled to combine genetic mosaic generation with gene expression manipulation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the CoinFLP system for generating mosaic Drosophila tissues with controlled gene knockdown or overexpression.
• To enable the study of interactions between genetically distinct cell populations.

Main Methods:

• The CoinFLP system utilizes recombination to generate mosaic tissues.
• CoinFLP-Gal4 produces tissues with a subset of Gal4-expressing clones.
• CoinFLP-LexGAD/Gal4 generates tissues with Gal4 or LexGAD expressing clones.
• GRASP (Generalized Reagent for Accurate Spatial Mapping) visualizes cell boundaries.

Main Results:

• The CoinFLP system reliably produces mosaic tissues with a consistent ratio of mutant to wild-type cells.
• It facilitates gene knockdown and overexpression studies within a mosaic context.
• CoinFLP-LexGAD/Gal4 combined with GRASP allows high-resolution visualization of cell population boundaries.

Conclusions:

• The CoinFLP system is a powerful tool for genetic mosaic screening in Drosophila.
• It overcomes limitations of previous methods for studying gene function in mosaic tissues.
• This system advances the understanding of cell interactions and tissue patterning.