Review Article
Learning on the Fly: The Interplay between Caspases and Cancer
Figure 1
Schematic diagram showing a Drosophila larva (a) and an adult fly (b). (a) The larval brain (grey in (a)) and the imaginal discs (purple in (a)) have often been genetically manipulated to induce metastatic tumours with physiological relevance in humans. The immune system (green dots in (a)) represent the macrophage-like Drosophila cells, hemocytes. Hemocytes have been used to study immune responses and tumour associated inflammation (a). (b) Recent studies have exploited systems in the adult fly to investigate metastatic and tumorigenic properties. Adult ovaries (white in (b)) are often used for testing the invasive ability of implanted tumours (originating from imaginal discs or the larval brain) in the abdomen (yellow in (b)). The natural migratory ability of ovarian border cells (blue in (b)) has been used to decipher the molecular mechanisms of cell migration during development. The Drosophila intestinal system (red in (b)) is a well-established system for modelling many aspects of tumorigenesis related to colon carcinomas.
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