Scholars@Duke
Eric P. Spana

Eric P. Spana

Associate Professor of the Practice of Biology
Biology
spana@duke.edu
Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708-1000
130 Science Drive, 0050 Biological Sciences Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

Characterization of the tilt (tt) phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster.

Journal Article microPublication biology · January 2023 In the early 20th century, Calvin Bridges and Thomas Morgan identified a number of spontaneous mutations that displayed visible phenotypes in adult flies and subsequent analysis of these mutations over the past century have provided fundamental insights in ... Full text Open Access Cite

speck, First Identified in Drosophila melanogaster in 1910, Is Encoded by the Arylalkalamine N-Acetyltransferase (AANAT1) Gene.

Journal Article G3 (Bethesda) · September 2, 2020 The pigmentation mutation speck is a commonly used recombination marker characterized by a darkly pigmented region at the wing hinge. Identified in 1910 by Thomas Hunt Morgan, speck was characterized by Sturtevant as the most "workable" mutant in the right ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Retrotransposons Are the Major Contributors to the Expansion of the Drosophila ananassae Muller F Element.

Journal Article G3 (Bethesda) · August 7, 2017 The discordance between genome size and the complexity of eukaryotes can partly be attributed to differences in repeat density. The Muller F element (∼5.2 Mb) is the smallest chromosome in Drosophila melanogaster, but it is substantially larger (>18.7 Mb) ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Inositol phosphate kinase 2 is required for imaginal disc development in Drosophila.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · December 2015 Inositol phosphate kinase 2 (Ipk2), also known as IP multikinase IPMK, is an evolutionarily conserved protein that initiates production of inositol phosphate intracellular messengers (IPs), which are critical for regulating nuclear and cytoplasmic processe ... Full text Cite

Drosophila muller f elements maintain a distinct set of genomic properties over 40 million years of evolution.

Journal Article G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · March 2015 The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manuall ... Full text Open Access Cite

Genetic dissection of leukemia-associated IDH1 and IDH2 mutants and D-2-hydroxyglutarate in Drosophila.

Journal Article Blood · January 8, 2015 Gain-of-function mutations in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)1 and IDH2 frequently arise in human leukemias and other cancers and produce high levels of D-2-hydroxyglutarate (D-2HG). We expressed the R19 ... Full text Link to item Cite

A course-based research experience: how benefits change with increased investment in instructional time.

Journal Article CBE life sciences education · January 2014 There is widespread agreement that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs should provide undergraduates with research experience. Practical issues and limited resources, however, make this a challenge. We have developed a bioinformatics ... Full text Cite

A central support system can facilitate implementation and sustainability of a Classroom-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in Genomics.

Journal Article CBE life sciences education · January 2014 In their 2012 report, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology advocated "replacing standard science laboratory courses with discovery-based research courses"-a challenging proposition that presents practical and pedagogical difficulti ... Full text Cite

A New Resource for Characterizing X-linked Genes in Drosophila melanogaster: Systematic Coverage and Subdivision of the X Chromosome with Nested, Y-linked Duplications.

Journal Article Genetics · September 2010 Interchromosomal duplications are especially important for the study of X-linked genes. Males inheriting a mutation in a vital X-linked gene cannot survive unless there is a wild type copy of the gene duplicated elsewhere in the genome. Rescuing the lethal ... Full text Cite

A paired-end sequencing strategy to map the complex landscape of transcription initiation.

Journal Article Nature methods · July 2010 Recent studies using high-throughput sequencing protocols have uncovered the complexity of mammalian transcription by RNA polymerase II, helping to define several initiation patterns in which transcription start sites (TSSs) cluster in both narrow and broa ... Full text Open Access Cite

Gp93, the Drosophila GRP94 ortholog, is required for gut epithelial homeostasis and nutrient assimilation-coupled growth control.

Journal Article Dev Biol · March 15, 2010 GRP94, the endoplasmic reticulum Hsp90, is a metazoan-restricted chaperone essential for early development in mammals, yet dispensable for mammalian cell viability. This dichotomy suggests that GRP94 is required for the functional expression of secretory a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Expression in aneuploid Drosophila S2 cells.

Journal Article PLoS Biol · February 23, 2010 Extensive departures from balanced gene dose in aneuploids are highly deleterious. However, we know very little about the relationship between gene copy number and expression in aneuploid cells. We determined copy number and transcript abundance (expressio ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The genomics education partnership: successful integration of research into laboratory classes at a diverse group of undergraduate institutions.

Journal Article CBE life sciences education · 2010 Genomics is not only essential for students to understand biology but also provides unprecedented opportunities for undergraduate research. The goal of the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP), a collaboration between a growing number of colleges and unive ... Full text Cite

Sprinter: a novel transmembrane protein required for Wg secretion and signaling.

Journal Article Development (Cambridge, England) · December 2006 Wingless (Wg) is a secreted ligand that differentially activates gene expression in target tissues. It belongs to the Wnt family of secreted signaling molecules that regulate cell-to-cell interactions during development. Activation of Wg targets is depende ... Full text Cite

Mapping Drosophila genomic aberration breakpoints with comparative genome hybridization on microarrays.

Journal Article Methods in enzymology · January 2006 Chromosomal aberrations are genetic "reagents" that are commonly used in Drosophila research. Stocks containing chromosomes carrying large deletions of DNA (deficiency stocks, designated Df) as well as stocks carrying an extra copy of a chromosomal region ... Full text Cite

BMP signaling is required for controlling somatic stem cell self-renewal in the Drosophila ovary.

Journal Article Developmental cell · November 2005 BMP signaling is essential for promoting self-renewal of mouse embryonic stem cells and Drosophila germline stem cells and for repressing stem cell proliferation in the mouse intestine and skin. However, it remains unknown whether BMP signaling can promote ... Full text Cite

A molecular basis for inositol polyphosphate synthesis in Drosophila melanogaster.

Journal Article The Journal of biological chemistry · November 2004 Metabolism of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (I(1,4,5)P3) results in the production of diverse arrays of inositol polyphosphates (IPs), such as IP4, IP5, IP6) and PP-IP5. Insights into their synthesis in metazoans are reported here through molecular studies ... Full text Cite

neurotic, a novel maternal neurogenic gene, encodes an O-fucosyltransferase that is essential for Notch-Delta interactions.

Journal Article Development (Cambridge, England) · October 2003 Notch signalling, which is highly conserved from nematodes to mammals, plays crucial roles in many developmental processes. In the Drosophila embryo, deficiency in Notch signalling results in neural hyperplasia, commonly referred to as the neurogenic pheno ... Full text Cite

The fruitless gene is required for the proper formation of axonal tracts in the embryonic central nervous system of Drosophila.

Journal Article Genetics · December 2002 The fruitless (fru) gene in Drosophila melanogaster is a multifunctional gene that has sex-specific functions in the regulation of male sexual behavior and sex-nonspecific functions affecting adult viability and external morphology. While much attention ha ... Full text Cite

The Dh gene of Drosophila melanogaster encodes a diuretic peptide that acts through cyclic AMP.

Journal Article The Journal of experimental biology · December 2002 Dh, the gene that encodes a CRF-like peptide in Drosophila melanogaster, is described. The product of this gene is a 44-amino-acid peptide (Drome-DH(44)) with a sequence almost identical to the Musca domestica and Stomoxys calcitrans diuretic hormones. The ... Full text Cite

Biochemical analysis of ++Prospero protein during asymmetric cell division: cortical Prospero is highly phosphorylated relative to nuclear Prospero.

Journal Article Developmental biology · December 1998 Drosophila neuroblasts are a model system for studying asymmetric cell division. Neuroblasts bud off a series of smaller progeny, called ganglion mother cells (GMCs). An essential regulator of GMC development is the Prospero homeodomain transcription facto ... Full text Cite

Numb antagonizes Notch signaling to specify sibling neuron cell fates.

Journal Article Neuron · July 1996 Asymmetric cell divisions play a key role in establishing neuronal diversity in the mammalian and Drosophila CNS, but the mechanisms involved are mostly unknown. The Drosophila MP2 precursor divides asymmetrically to generate the dMP2/vMP2 interneurons. De ... Full text Cite

New neuroblast markers and the origin of the aCC/pCC neurons in the Drosophila central nervous system.

Journal Article Mechanisms of development · November 1995 Drosophila is an ideal system for identifying genes that control central nervous system (CNS) development. Particularly useful tools include molecular markers for subsets of neural precursors (neuroblasts) and the simple expression pattern of the even-skip ... Full text Cite

Asymmetric localization of numb autonomously determines sibling neuron identity in the Drosophila CNS.

Journal Article Development (Cambridge, England) · November 1995 The central nervous system (CNS) represents an excellent model system for examining how a multitude of unique cell fates are specified. We find that asymmetric localization of the numb protein autonomously controls a binary cell fate decision in the Drosop ... Full text Cite

The prospero transcription factor is asymmetrically localized to the cell cortex during neuroblast mitosis in Drosophila.

Journal Article Development (Cambridge, England) · October 1995 Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors are known to regulate sibling cell fate. Here we describe a novel mechanism for the asymmetric localization of a transcription factor to one daughter cell at mitosis. The Drosophila CNS develops from asymmetrically divi ... Full text Cite

RK2, a glial-specific homeodomain protein required for embryonic nerve cord condensation and viability in Drosophila.

Journal Article Development (Cambridge, England) · October 1994 We report the identification of RK2, a glial-specific homeodomain protein. RK2 is localized to the nucleus of virtually all embryonic and imaginal glial cells, with the exception of midline glia. Embryos mutant for the gene encoding RK2 are embryonic letha ... Full text Cite

Prox 1, a prospero-related homeobox gene expressed during mouse development.

Journal Article Mechanisms of development · November 1993 Prox 1, a likely mouse homologue of the Drosophila homeobox gene prospero has been cloned and its expression pattern analyzed during development. In Drosophila, prospero is expressed in the developing CNS, lens-secreting cone cells of the eye, and midgut. ... Full text Cite