GM-UAM - Grupo de Competición Celular en Drosophila
Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Group Leader (coordinator): This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
AIMS
The research in the laboratory has been focused on the general problems of size control and cell proliferation in Drosophila, and on related processes such as apoptosis and cell competition. We make use of the wing imaginal disc as experimental system.
A research line has been the response of the wing disc to massive X-ray induced apoptosis. In has been know for long time that under these treatments the disc is able to recover normal size. The current view is that apoptotic cells emit before dying proliferative signals. Our work shown that this hypothesis is incorrect because wing compartments are able to compensate in absence of the candidate signals. We have shown that inhibiting apoptosis in this conditions causes the production of hyperplasic tumors in the disc.
Regarding the size control mechanisms, we have shown that these function at the level of individual compartments. These are the units of size control in imaginal development.The fundamental mechanism that determines the final size of a compartment is an integrative process that operates in the entire cell population. It arrest growth once the compartment has reached the final dimension, irrespective of cell lineages.