Amodeo Lab
Principal Investigator: Amanda A Amodeo
Institution: Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT A fundamental question in cell biology is how cells measure and maintain their characteristic sizes. We use two systems in Drosophila development to study cell size control that provide a natural system for uncoupling growth and division: embryogenesis and oogenesis. The early embryo is an extremely large cell that undergoes rapid divisions without cell growth, while the oocyte uses polyploid nurse cells to grow to a massive size without dividing. In the embryo, the final cell size is determined by the nucleus to cytoplasm ratio (N/C ratio). The N/C ratio controls a major developmental transition known as the mid-blastula transition (MBT) where the cell cycle stops and zygotic transcription initiates. Recently, we discovered a surprising mechanism for N/C-ratio sensing in the pre-MBT embryo. Hyper-abundant maternally provided histone H3 acts as a competitive inhibitor of the DNA-damage checkpoint kinase, Chk1, to prevent cell cycle slowing. As more and more nuclei are generated by the successive divisions the pool of “free” (ie-not chromatin-incorporated) H3 is imported into the increasing numbers of nuclei and then incorporated into chromatin thereby relea…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM150853-04: The coordination of cell size control and cell cycle regulation at developmental extremes (2026)
- 5R35GM150853-03: The coordination of cell size control and cell cycle regulation at developmental extremes (2025)
- 5R35GM150853-02: The coordination of cell size control and cell cycle regulation at developmental extremes (2024)
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