News from the group:
Research Exchange Fellowships - IAESTE (apply)
CAMDA 2023 - ISMB Conference Track, 26-27 July, Lyon, France (read more)
World-leading patient stratification - graph based cancer data integration (read more)
Confirming molecular mechanisms of tendon regeneration - a powerful ovine fetal model (read more)
CAMDA 2022
ISMB Conference Track,
11-12 July, Madison, USA
(read more)
NVIDIA GTC Best Poster Award
for MM Kańduła
at GTC'18
Outstanding Presentation Prize
for MM Kańduła
at CAMDA'17
Outstanding Presentation Prize
for PP Łabaj
at CAMDA'15 (photo)
Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation scholarship
for MM Kańduła
at Boston University
OeAW APART fellowship
for PP Łabaj
(photo)

Sequencing Quality Control (SEQC) project,
MAQC Consortium 2011–2014 (read more)
Host–parasite interactions in biocontrol, WWTF grant 2010–2013 (read more)

Power and limitations of RNA-Seq,
FDA SEQC, Nature Biotechnology (read more)
Characterization and improvement of RNA-Seq precision,
Bioinformatics (read more)
Impact of heavy tails in microarray analysis, Bioinformatics (read more)
Novel conserved repeats in sorting signals,
FEBS Journal (read more)
Sound sensation gene,
Nature communications
(read more)
RNA interference in ageing research,
Gerontology (read more)

Molecular determinants of ageing – quantitative response of fruitflies to adult-specific RNA interference (RNAi)

In order to improve our understanding of molecular mechanisms of ageing we will examine ageing processes in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. To this end genes will be identified that increase life expectancy; and their effects will be studied in adults as these age. Besides exploiting modern molecularbiological methods that allow the individual inhibition of particular genes specifically in adult flies, behavioural studies of ageing will also be performed.

Mathematical models allow a joint analysis with genome-scale measurements of molecular effects. Besides contributing to an optimized experimental design, bioinformatical methods will be used to detect causal relationships between individual genes and ageing processes.

Project description

We investigate molecular mechanisms of ageing in complex multicellular organisms by adult-specific gene silencing in fruitflies (Drosophila melanogaster). Triggering temperature sensitive RNAi only in adult life allows, for the first time, the complete separation of developmental effects in a screen for longevity. In addition, multi-dimensional phenotypic and behavioural assays over the entire adult life of the flies permit a focus on lines that live long and well. Molecular effects of candidate genes on ageing will be thoroughly studied over time and genome-wide using RT-PCR and microarray time-courses. Integrated analysis of molecular, phenotypic, and behavioural data requires the development of modern probabilistic methods at all stages of the project, providing 1) optimal experimental design, 2) identification of causal consequences of target gene silencing, and 3) sensitive detection of molecular processes differentially affected during ageing.

Partners

We collaborate with Dr. Barry Dickson and Dr. Nadege Minois of the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP). All fruitfly work is performed at IMP while quantitative molecular measurements and computational analyses are conducted by our group at Boku.

Funding

Support for this project was won through competition in the WWTF Life Sciences Call 2005.