{"id":4713,"date":"2021-06-19T13:49:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T18:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/?p=4713"},"modified":"2021-06-19T13:49:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T18:49:44","slug":"where-is-the-spastin-gene-acting-to-regulate-neuromuscular-junction-nmj-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/?p=4713","title":{"rendered":"Where is the spastin gene acting to regulate neuromuscular junction (NMJ) structure?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jayden Cyrus\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mentor: Nina Tang Sherwood, Ph.D.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Department of Biology<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPG4<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spastin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) gene plays a role in microtubule severing, and when mutated in humans, it causes Autosomal Dominant Hereditary Spastic Parapelgia (AD-HSP), a disease that impairs mobility in the legs. Previous studies in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drosophila <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">have shown that ubiquitous <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spastin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> deletion creates small, bunched boutons in the larval neuromuscular junction (NMJ)<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and motor defects in surviving adults. However, it remains unknown where spastin acts. We are testing the hypothesis that spastin acts in a specific tissue, such as neurons or glia. To test this, we are using CRISPR-Cas9P2 and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a tissue-specific expression system to delete spastin exclusively <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">in the glia and neurons of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drosophila<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Additionally, we are examining flies with ubiquitous <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spastin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> deletion to control for the novelty of the Cas9P2 technology in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drosophila<\/span><\/i> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spastin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. If Spastin is acting in a tissue-specific manner, the flies with the tissue-specific deletion will show the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spastin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> mutant phenotype. In addition to studying the site specificity of Spastin, this study aims to test the effectiveness of Cas9P2 as a genome editing tool in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drosophila <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and contribute to the knowledge base of those studying AD-HSP. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jayden Cyrus\u00a0 Mentor: Nina Tang Sherwood, Ph.D. Department of Biology The SPG4 (spastin) gene plays a role in microtubule severing, and when mutated in humans, it causes Autosomal Dominant Hereditary Spastic Parapelgia (AD-HSP), a disease that impairs mobility in the legs. Previous studies in Drosophila have shown that ubiquitous spastin deletion creates small, bunched boutons [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47841,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[658455,658461],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsurf-2021","category-week-6-bsurf-2021"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47841"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4713"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4715,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions\/4715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}