title: Roles of Bifocal, Homer, and F-actin in anchoring Oskar to the posterior cortex of Drosophila oocytes.
abstract: Transport, translation, and anchoring of osk mRNA and proteins are essential for posterior patterning of Drosophila embryos. Here we show that Homer and Bifocal act redundantly to promote posterior anchoring of the osk gene products. Disruption of actin microfilaments, which causes delocalization of Bifocal but not Homer from the oocyte cortex, severely disrupts anchoring of osk gene products only when Homer (not Bifocal) is absent. Our data suggest that two processes, one requiring Bifocal and an intact F-actin cytoskeleton and a second requiring Homer but independent of intact F-actin, may act redundantly to mediate posterior anchoring of the osk gene products.
authors.affiliation: MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, King's College London, London SE1 1UL, UK.
authors.forename: Kavita
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Babu
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Sami
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bahri
authors.forename: Xiaohang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chia
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D004330:Drosophila / Q000378:metabolism; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D000072233:Homer Scaffolding Proteins; D009154:Mutation; D009479:Neuropeptides / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D009865:Oocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000199:Actins; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D003598:Cytoskeletal Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D005136:Eye Proteins; D000072233:Homer Scaffolding Proteins; D009479:Neuropeptides; D012333:RNA, Messenger; C107943:bif protein, Drosophila; C000606630:homer protein, Drosophila; C091675:osk protein, Drosophila