Drosophila to Humans : We share the same intestine also!!!
Drosophila melanogaster, a model organism of choice for many researchers share any similarities with human beings at molecular and cellular level.If one look at the morphology of Drosophila ,its difficult for a common man to believe that we humans share so many common aspects with this little arthropod.This is one of the reason which makes Drosophila a powerful model system to study early development of embryo,organ formation ,disease and many more things, as many genes related to development and disease are shared by Flies and Humans. Another fact that makes flies hugely successful model system is their ability to be dissected genetically with the tools available — a task more difficult to carry out in mammals.
Just to cite some examples of similarity from my previous posts:
1) Hox genes : Drosophila and Vertebrates share similar Hox genes ,which are crucial for patterning along anterior posterior axis.
2) Tinman (NK GENE) plays a crucial role in heart formation in both arthropods and Vertebrates.Still there are many aspects like eye development,neurogenesis and genes responsible for diseases in Humans have counterparts in fruit fly Drosophila .
Recently, thanks to some brilliant work by Takashima et al. now show that Our intestine is also similar to that of the fly, not only in function but also in its development and maintenance.Just like our intestinal cells digestive system of adult drosophila is made up of epithelial cells with absorption and secretory functions.
These epithelial cells lining intestine are prone to damage by ingested food,pathogens and toxins.
So intestinal stem cells take the responsibilty of renewing these damaged cells by producing mature intestinal cells and and any imbalance in this process will lead to cancer.
We Share Intestine as well !!!!!
Takashima et al. identified the set of cells that act as stem cells which are responsible for
development and maintenance of fly’s hindgut and they observed a remarkable similarity in the mechanism of homeostasis in drosophila when compared to mammals(mice).
Like mammalian system,in drosophila also signalling pathways wingless and hedgehog play a significant role in regulating communication between the mesenchymal tissue and the gut epithelium is crucial for
maintaining the balance between cell renewal and differentiation.
The behaviour of Drosophila adult hindgut stem cells is controlled by Wnt and Hh signalling
Shigeo Takashima, Marianna Mkrtchyan, Amelia Younossi-Hartenstein, John R. Merriam & Volker Hartenstein.
doi:10.1038/nature07156
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