Robin Wharton

Research interests

Our laboratory studies the mechanisms that govern pattern formation during development of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Recent research focuses on two areas:

1. translational regulation of maternal mRNAs during specification of the embryonic body plan, and
2. cell cycle regulation during both embryonic and imaginal disc development.

Abdominal segmentation is governed by the combined activities of Nanos and Pumilio, which block translation of hunchback mRNA. In addition, we have found that translation of nanos mRNA is essential for normal development.

 

Publications

• Gupta, Y.K., Nair, D.T., Wharton, R.P., and Aggarwal, A.K. (2008) Structures of human Pumilio with non-cognate RNAs reveal flipped-out nucleotides Structure 16: 549-557.
• Song, Y., Lee, T., Fee, L., and Wharton, R.P. (2007). The molecular chaperone Hsp90 is required for mRNA localization in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Genetics 176: 2213-2222.
• Kadyrova, L., Habara, Y., Lee, T.H. and Wharton, R.P. (2007). Translational control of maternal CyclinB mRNA by Nanos in the Drosophila germ line. Development 134: 1519-1527.
• Wharton, R.P. and Aggarwal, A.K. (2006). mRNA regulation by Puf domain proteins. Science STKE 354: pe37.
• Lee, C.-Y., Wilkinson, B.D., Siegrist, S.E., Wharton, R. P., and Doe, C. Q. (2006) Brat is a Miranda cargo protein that promotes neuronal differentiation and inhibits neuroblast self-renewal. Dev. Cell 10: 441-49.
• Edwards, T.A., Butterwick, J.A., Zeng, L., Gupta, Y.K., Wang, X., Wharton, R. P., Palmer, A.G., Aggarwal, A.K. (2006). Solution structure of the Vts1 SAM domain in the presence of RNA. J. Mol. Biol. 356: 1065-72.