Germany: Protein Kinase D required for combatting oxidative stress and development in Drosophila melanogaster

Protein Kinase D is Dispensable for Development and Survival of Drosophila melanogaster

Dieter Maier, Anja C. Nagel, Alexandra Kelp and Anette Preiss

Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Genetik (240A), Garbenstr. 30, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany|2019|G3 GENES, GENOMES, GENETICS|9:8:2477-2487 https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.119.400307

Protein Kinase D (PKD) isoforms belong to the PKC/CAMK class of serine/threonine kinases and transmit diacylglycerol-regulated signals. Whilst mammals have three PKD isoforms, Drosophila melanogaster harbors a single PKD homolog with a similarity of 67% and identity of nearly 60% to any of the three human PKD’s. Fittingly, Drosophila melanogaster has been used to study the biological roles of PKD where it is broadly expressed throughout development. Previous studies indicate that Drosophila PKD is multifunctional, like its mammalian homologs. In this study, the role of Drosophila PKD was further studied by utilising null alleles that are homozygous viable without apparent phenotype. Transcriptional analysis using relative quantification of three biological and two technical replicates was performed using the Mic qPCR Cycler and its complementary micPCR software. The relative quantification was based on REST, taking target efficiency into account. The expression of a target gene is standardised by a non-regulated reference-gene or by an index, therefore containing more reference-genes than other relative quantification methods. The data indicates that PKD is required for development and survival in Drosophila, but also required for combatting oxidative stress.

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