Subject: Helping FlyBase: ADRC-560A
Dear Amy,
We are currently curating the abstracts for the upcoming 41st
(Pittsburgh) Annual Drosophila Research Conference, for FlyBase.
I am writing in connection with your abstract:
'Characterization of blimp and zeppelin, two
genes required for normal epidermal development.'
You mention a gene that is new to FlyBase, zeppelin. Except that we
are not completely sure that it is new, and I need to make sure. We have
zep: zeppelin as a synonym for psq: pipsqueak. Since that particular
zeppelin dates back to 1996 (FBrf0088214 == Horowitz and Berg, 1996,
Development 122(6): 1859--1871) I sincerely doubt that it is the same
as your zeppelin, but I have to check.
Also, do you have a map location for zeppelin? You know what we are
like about our map data ....
Thank you for your help,
Rachel.
Hi Sweetie,
Our zeppelin is completely unrelated (unless there is some
extremely weird cosmic coincidence). It maps to the centromeric
heterochromatin on the third. blimp and zeppelin are both named for the
extreme ballooning of the embryos when we squash them under coverslips in
the course of doing cuticle preparations. They seem to result in some sort
of stretchy-skin or -cuticle effect.
\-- Amy