Genome wide visual RNAi screens to elucidate the mechanism of cleaved EGFR ligand retention
Shilo's lab

The Drosophila EGF receptor (EGFR) signaling pathway is one of five cardinal cascades that determine all developmental decisions throughout the life cycle of the fly. Some of these pathways are involved in long range signaling (Wingless and BMP), while in the Notch pathway signaling is restricted only to the cells adjacent to the membrane-bound ligand producing cells. Finally, the Hedgehog and EGFR pathways can signal over several cell diameters, but a variety of negative feedback mechanism assure that the signaling range would be restricted. This restriction is cardinal, since it determines the number of cells that will be recruited in each cycle of activation. Our studies focus on the restriction of signaling by the EGFR pathway.

a section of the Drosophila eye, where we examine how the intracellular localization of ligand processing and its ER retention determines the level of EGFR activation.

ER retention of the cleaved EGFR ligand.		The Kahn project in the lab focuses on the examination of dsRNAs representing all 13,000 Drosophila genes, to identify the ones that compromise ER retention.