Yuan Tian

Publications (2)11.22 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: PubMed Central

  Article: Tissue-autonomous function of Drosophila seipin in preventing ectopic lipid droplet formation.

  Yuan Tian, Junfeng Bi, Guanghou Shui, Zhonghua Liu, Yanhui Xiang, Yuan Liu, Markus R Wenk, Hongyuan Yang, Xun Huang
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  ABSTRACT: Obesity is characterized by accumulation of excess body fat, while lipodystrophy is characterized by loss or absence of body fat. Despite their opposite phenotypes, these two conditions both cause ectopic lipid storage in non-adipose tissues, leading to lipotoxicity, which has health-threatening consequences. The exact mechanisms underlying ectopic lipid storage remain elusive. Here we report the analysis of a Drosophila model of the most severe form of human lipodystrophy, Berardinelli-Seip Congenital Lipodystrophy 2, which is caused by mutations in the BSCL2/Seipin gene. In addition to reduced lipid storage in the fat body, dSeipin mutant flies accumulate ectopic lipid droplets in the salivary gland, a non-adipose tissue. This phenotype was suppressed by expressing dSeipin specifically within the salivary gland. dSeipin mutants display synergistic genetic interactions with lipogenic genes in the formation of ectopic lipid droplets. Our data suggest that dSeipin may participate in phosphatidic acid metabolism and subsequently down-regulate lipogenesis to prevent ectopic lipid droplet formation. In summary, we have demonstrated a tissue-autonomous role of dSeipin in ectopic lipid storage in lipodystrophy.
  PLoS Genetics 04/2011; 7(4):e1001364. · 8.69 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: stanford.edu

  Article: Case studies of ends-out gene targeting in Drosophila.

  Haiyang Chen, Zhiguo Ma, Zhonghua Liu, Yuan Tian, Yanhui Xiang, Chao Wang, Matthew P Scott, Xun Huang
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  ABSTRACT: Ends-in and ends-out gene replacement approaches have been successfully used to disrupt Drosophila genes involved in a variety of biological processes. These methods combine double-strand breaks and homologous recombination to replace a targeted chromosome region with a designed DNA sequence. Unfortunately, these methods require large numbers of single animal crosses, making them both time consuming and labor intensive. Here, we designed a single complete targeting vector for use in a mass crossing ends-out gene targeting study. Importantly, our gene targeting method included a balancer chromosome to block endogenous homologous chromosome pairing and to promote pairing between the foreign targeting DNA fragment and the targeted chromosome. This technique provided successful and efficient gene replacement, greatly facilitating the gene knockout procedure.
  genesis 04/2009; 47(5):305-8. · 2.53 Impact Factor