Lipid Droplets Are the Main Store of Lipids in Eukaryotic Cells

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Quantifying the Effects of Dificiencies of Klarsicht, ΔHalo, and Midway proteins in Embryonic Lipid Droplet Deposition

Rishin Patel

Mentor: Steven Gross

Lipid droplets are the main store of lipids in eukaryotic cells. In Drosophila, they play a crucial role in metabolism during early development. Moreover, it was recently suggested that they might act as a buffering surface that could release maternally provided proteins only when needed. Molecular motor-based active transport of lipid droplets in the embryos has been shown to be developmentally regulated. I proposed that the proteins involved in developmental transport of embryonic lipids also control the deposition of lipids into the egg via the nurse cells at an earlier stage. I investigated the extent of protein control on lipid deposition by developing a method for in situ quantification of the amount of lipid within embryos of different mutant backgrounds. The amount of lipids in Dhalo, klarsicht (klar A) and Midway (mdyQx25) mutant backgrounds was compared to wildtype (Or-R). Dhalo and KlarA embryos have previously been shown to alter lipid droplet distribution within the embryo at early stages of development, and Midway (mdyQx25) was shown to have reduced levels of neutral lipids in the oocyte. These results show changed lipid levels among these mutants consistent with the notion that these proteins might also play a role in the early lipid deposition in the egg. The role of these proteins in lipid deposition will be further explored by detecting changes in their concentration and interactions at various stages of development to determine whether varied protein activity throughout these stages causes altered lipid deposition.