Rus, F., Kurucz, E., Markus, R., Sinenko, S.A., Laurinyecz, B., Pataki, C., Gausz, J., Hegedus, Z., Udvardy, A., Hultmark, D., Ando, I. (2006). Expression pattern of Filamin-240 in Drosophila blood cells.  Gene Expr. Patterns 6(8): 928--934.

FBrf0192952

Research paper

The expression pattern of Filamin-240 was studied in subsets of Drosophila blood cells by means of immunofluorescent staining and Western blot analysis with use of an antibody specific to a "filamin-folding domain", a consensus motif profile generated from the 20 existing filamin repeats. Expression of Filamin-240 is restricted to lamellocytes - a special blood cell type of the cellular immune response - and is involved in the regulation of lamellocyte development. In the cher1 homozygous larvae, which lack Filamin-240 protein, a vigorous lamellocyte differentiation occurs which is further enhanced upon in vivo immune challenge by a parasitic wasp, Leptopilina boulardi. By introducing a full-length transgene encoding the Drosophila Filamin-240 protein into the cher1 Filamin-deficient homozygous mutant, the mutant blood cell phenotype was rescued. These data demonstrate that the expression of Filamin-240 is strictly lamellocyte specific in Drosophila blood cells and that the protein is a suppressor of lamellocyte development.