News

Image of green fluorescence in GFP-tagged Drosophila cultured cells

New cell lines & new understandings using cutting-edge techniques

February 2, 2024

As a facility that supports large-scale screens in Drosophila and other insect cell lines, we get excited about reports of new Drosophila cell lines and related info.

We'd like to highlight two recent papers.

One report, a collaboration between Amanda Simcox's group, the DGRC, and our group here at the DRSC, describes new cell lines made in Amanda's group and characterized in a collaboration of the three groups. Muscle cells that pulse? Yes. That and other exciting new cell lines are reported in the publication below, and the cells are available at the DGRC...

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Figure 1 from Xu, Kim et al 2022 in eLife

Light up your flies! Reagent and protocol information for application of our NanoTag system for epitope tagging in Drosophila

March 23, 2023

One of the areas of interest for our technology development group is nanobodies. These small, single-chain antibodies are particularly attractive for Drosophila research as in addition to being used for standard immune-technologies such as immunoblots and immunostaining of tissues, they can also be expressed in vivo as fusions to fluorescent proteins (‘chromobodies’) or functional domains (e.g., for degradation or re-localization).

Past applications of this technology in Drosophila relied on availability of nanobodies targeting a specific protein or use of nanobodies targeting...

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Decorative cartoon drawn with BioRender depicting DRSC-BTRR technology concepts

So you want to do a CRISPR pooled screen in insect cells? You can! Here's how

May 12, 2022

At the DRSC-BTRR, we've been doing a lot of pooled-format CRISPR knockout screens in Drosophila cells. We're finding the results to be robust and reproducible. And best of all, the results have been informative, providing insights into diverse areas of biology.

Thinking about how to do CRISPR knockout screens in cells is a little different from thinking about how to do a genetic or RNAi screen in vivo or doing an arrayed-format RNAi screen....

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Graphical image of tissue culture, fly pushing, and computer, and the team of people who work with them

DRSC/TRiP and DRSC-BTRR Office Hours

September 13, 2021

New this fall: Online office hours!

Do you have questions about modifying Drosophila cell lines with CRISPR or performing large-scale cell screens? Questions about in vivo RNAi with TRiP fly stocks or CRISPR knockout or activation with our sgRNA fly stocks? Questions about our new protocols and resources for CRISPR mosquito cell lines? Pop into our Zoom office hours to say hello and get our expert input! Registration is required (see below).

DRSC/TRiP & DRSC-BTRR Office Hours Schedule:

Mon. Sept. 27, 2021, 12...

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Image of an anesthetized male Drosophila fruit fly

DRSC/TRiP presentations from June 2020 Boston Area Drosophila Meeting

June 12, 2020
Did you miss the presentations from Claire Hu and Jonathan Zirin at the June 2020 Boston Area Drosophila Meeting? No problem! The slides can be accessed from this post. Click the title above to view the whole post, then scroll down to access the PDFs. These presentations describe what's new and next in bioinformatics and in vivo technologies at the DRSC/TRiP. Feel free to reach out with questions. Interested in the BAD meeting? Info about the meeting can be found here. Read more about DRSC/TRiP presentations from June 2020 Boston Area Drosophila Meeting
from Figure 1 in Ewen-Campen et al. in Dev Cell

Transgenic Fly Stocks for Double Knockout of Paralog Pairs

May 18, 2020

Paralogs can be defined as related genes within a genome that are thought to arise from gene duplication events. Because paralogous proteins share amino acid identity, they can have redundant functions. But the picture is not necessarily so straightforward. Indeed, there are examples in which paralogous genes have distinct functions in some tissues, and overlapping functions in others.

The DRSC/TRiP is engaged in a project in collaboration with the Perrimon and Bellen labs to generate resources useful for the study of paralogous genes in Drosophila.

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