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Updated: Nov 18, 2025

Methods to Examine the Lymph Gland and Hemocytes in Drosophila Larvae
11:49

Methods to Examine the Lymph Gland and Hemocytes in Drosophila Larvae

Published on: November 28, 2016

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Rab5 and Rab11 maintain hematopoietic homeostasis by restricting multiple signaling pathways in Drosophila

Shichao Yu1, Fangzhou Luo1, Li Hua Jin1

  • 1Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China.

Elife
|February 9, 2021
PubMed

The hematopoietic system of Drosophila is a powerful genetic model for studying hematopoiesis, and vesicle trafficking is important for signal transduction during various developmental processes; however, its interaction with hematopoiesis is currently largely unknown. In this article, we selected three endosome markers, Rab5, Rab7, and Rab11, that play a key role in membrane trafficking and determined whether they participate in hematopoiesis. Inhibiting Rab5 or Rab11 in hemocytes or the cortical zone (CZ) significantly induced cell overproliferation and lamellocyte formation in circulating hemocytes and lymph glands and disrupted blood cell progenitor maintenance. Lamellocyte formation involves the JNK, Toll, and Ras/EGFR signaling pathways. Notably, lamellocyte formation was also associated with JNK-dependent autophagy. In conclusion, we identified Rab5 and Rab11 as novel regulators of hematopoiesis, and our results advance the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of hematopoietic homeostasis as well as the pathology of blood disorders such as leukemia.

Keywords:
D. melanogasterRab11Rab5cell biologydevelopmental biologyhematopoiesishemocytelymph glandvesicle trafficking

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