Roles of the Chromatin Insulator Protein Cp190 in the Development of Drosophila melanogaster
The gypsy insulator in Drosophila melanogaster affects gene expression by organizing higher-order chromatin structure. The CP190 protein component of the gypsy insulator is known to be essential to the fly during development. It is believed that the Glutamic Acid-rich C-terminal domain of the protein plays an important role during embryonic development by affecting nuclear migration or dorsal closure, two myosindependent events. To explore this supposition, embryos lacking maternal contribution and homozygous for the Cp190 mutation (deleted C-terminus) were stained in order to view nuclear migration and to determine their developmental stage. To establish whether the homozygous mutants were able to develop into larvae, a GFP signal in heterozygous flies was viewed. Results showed that flies homozygous for the Cp190 mutation were able to develop past the embryo stage into larvae with no disruption in nuclear migration or dorsal closure. This indicated that the Glutamic Acid-rich C-terminus of the CP190 protein may not play an essential role in the fly's embryonic development, but it may affect later stages including the fly's larval or pupal stages
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