Siekhaus Group

The formation of the body, the functioning of the immune system and the spread of cancer all depend on the ability of cells to migrate. We strive to understand this crucial process and in particular the question of how cells move within the complicated environment of an organism and penetrate through barriers that lie in their way. We address these questions in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster by studying the developmental migration of immune cells which all move from the location of their birth to disparate regions of the embryo through precise paths. One of these trajectories requires the cells to move through epithelial junctions, in a process that we have shown utilizes molecular components also required in mammalian immune cells and metastatic cancer cells to penetrate the endothelial vasculature. We have identified many genes required for this invasive movement and have shown that several of them facilitate dynamic cellular interactions by regulating the intracellular localization of an activator of adhesion. Using a powerful combination of imaging, genetics, cell biology and biophysics we seek to understand the functions of these genes, the pathways they act in, and the strategies and principles that underlie invasive migration. We hope to translate what we learn from our Drosophila studies to autoimmunity and metastasis.