A Morphology and Gene Expression Atlas of Drosophila Embryogenesis.
1) Life Sciences and Genomics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
2) Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
3) Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, CA.
4) Institute for Data Analysis and Visualization, University of California, Davis, CA.
The Berkeley Drosophila Transcription Network Project (http://bdtnp.lbl.gov) has established a suite of live and fixed embryo imaging and image analysis methods that have provided the first quantitative three-dimensional description of Drosophila blastoderm morphology and gene expression at cellular resolution. This atlas has revealed a wealth of previously undetected biological results and is being used in our system-wide analysis of the early transcript network. During the 10 hours after blastoderm formation, large cell motions and complex patterns of differentiation generate late stage embryos with over 70 cell types and all major larval organs. Using an improved imaging technology that allows an entire embryo to be captured in three dimensions with high fidelity, we are developing computational methods to produce a quantitative, cellular-resolution atlas of all of embryo development. High-resolution fluorescence images of whole, fixed embryos are being acquired and used to develop segmentation methods to locate the individual nuclei and cells. Classification methods, using annotated morphological features and tissue-specific markers, are being developed to recognize specific body-plan and tissue structures. Registration methods are being developed to assemble multiple embryo images into average morphological maps, onto which measured, per-cell mRNA and protein expression levels can be added. To link these stage-specific maps, temporal movements and mitotic events will be tracked using live cell imaging of embryos expressing nuclear, cell membrane and tissue-specific fluorescent proteins. The goal is to produce an expandable computational, morphology and gene expression atlas of Drosophila embryogenesis at cellular resolution.
Last modified January 24, 2008.