Reference Report

Reference
Citation	Wu, V.M., Yu, M.H., Paik, R., Banerjee, S., Liang, Z., Paul, S.M., Bhat, M.A., Beitel, G.J. (2007). Drosophila Varicose, a member of a new subgroup of basolateral MAGUKs, is required for septate junctions and tracheal morphogenesis. Development 134(5): 999--1009. (Export to RIS)
FlyBase ID	FBrf0194079
Publication Type	Research paper
PubMed ID	17267446
PubMed Abstract	Epithelial tubes are the functional units of many organs, but little is known about how tube sizes are established. Using the Drosophila tracheal system as a model, we previously showed that mutations in varicose (vari) cause tubes to become elongated without increasing cell number. Here we show vari is required for accumulation of the tracheal size-control proteins Vermiform and Serpentine in the tracheal lumen. We also show that vari is an essential septate junction (SJ) gene encoding a membrane associated guanylate kinase (MAGUK). In vivo analyses of domains important for MAGUK scaffolding functions demonstrate that while the Vari HOOK domain is essential, the L27 domain is dispensable. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that Vari helps define a new MAGUK subgroup that includes mammalian PALS2. Importantly, both Vari and PALS2 are basolateral, and the interaction of Vari with the cell-adhesion protein Neurexin IV parallels the interaction of PALS2 and another cell-adhesion protein, Necl-2. Vari therefore bolsters the similarity between Drosophila and vertebrate epithelial basolateral regions, which had previously been limited to the common basolateral localization of Scrib, Dlg and Lgl, proteins required for epithelial polarization at the beginning of embryogenesis. However, by contrast to Scrib, Dlg and Lgl, Vari is not required for cell polarity but rather is part of a cell-adhesion complex. Thus, Vari fundamentally extends the similarity of Drosophila and vertebrate basolateral regions from sharing only polarity complexes to sharing both polarity and cell-adhesion complexes.
DOI	10.1242/dev.02785
Related Publication(s)
Recent Updates
Description	What does this section display? This section contains items that were added to this record for each release. It currently only tracks new links between this FlyBase report and other FlyBase data classes (e.g. genes, references, stocks) or controlled vocabulary terms (e.g. GO, anatomy terms). What does this section not display? This section does not currently display links that were removed or gene model changes.
Update Feed	Click the icon below to subscribe to this FlyBase record and receive updates automatically through your feed reader.
FB2013_03
FB2013_02
All updates	Click here to see a list of all updates to this record from FB2010_08 and on.
Associated Information
Comments
Associated Files
Other Information
Secondary IDs
Language of Publication	English
Additional Languages of Abstract
Also Published As
Parent Publication
Publication Type	Journal
Abbreviation	Development
Title	Development
Publication Year	1987-
ISBN/ISSN	0950-1991
Data from Reference
Aberrations (1)
	Df(2L)TW2
Alleles (20)
	Avic\GFP^Scer\UAS.cUa cora⁵ Lac^k11012b nrv2^23B Nrx-IV⁴⁸⁴⁶ Scer\GAL4^btl.PS Scer\GAL4^da.G32 sinu^nwu7 vari^38EFa2 vari³²⁷ vari^03953b vari^dsRNA.cWa vari^f00033 vari^HM2043 vari^{long.Scer\UAS} vari^R3 vari^R979 vari^R2376 vari^{short.Scer\UAS} w^+mC
Constructs (5)
	P{GAL4-btl.S} P{GAL4-da.G32} P{UAS-GFP.U} P{UAS-vari.long} P{UAS-vari.short}
Genes (22)
	arm Avic\GFP CASK cora crb dlg1 Lac metro Nrg nrv2 Nrx-IV Patj pyd Scer\GAL4 sdt serp shg sinu vari veli verm w
Insertions (1)
	PBac{WH}vari^f00033
Natural transposons (1)
	P-element