ABOUT ZHENG GUO LAB
Our laboratory is located in the Tongji Medical Centre of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, China. We use Drosophila as a model organism to study intestinal epithelial homeostasis. We are interested in the following questions: (1) How do intestinal stem cells (ISCs) initiate their first asymmetric divisions? (2) How is the multipotency of ISCs achieved? and (3) Why are ISCs maintained at a certain number during tissue homeostasis? and so on...
Research
PHOTO GALLERY
Immunofluorescence staining of fly adult intestine.
Blue is the nuclear staining, green indicates progenitors and the red indicates the Notch activation.
Live imaging of asymmetric and symmetric mitotic divisions
asymmetric (upper) and symmetric (lower) cell divisions in the Drosophila pupal midgut (red:esg>Tomato, green: Pros::GFP).
Copper Cell Region of the
Drosophilamidgut
Green (Cut staining) indicates the cup shap Copper cells in this region.
Notch is activated in the ISCs
ISCs divide asymmetrically at pupal stage, generating one ISC progenitor (ISCP) and one enteroendocrine mother cell (EMC). During the separation of those two cells, Notch (the red puncta) is activated in the ISCP.
Anatomy of a Drosophila brain
Brain is labeled by NC82 (red).
Lateral inhibitory effect of Notch signaling
ISC tumour was induced by knocking down Notch signalling. And there was a lateral inhibitory effect after the knockdown was reversed. Green is esg-GFP, red is NRE-lacZ.
Young and old Drosophila melanogaster
Young fly (left) showed a significant reduction in the leakage of a non-absorbable blue food dye into the blood-like hemolymph than the old (the right). Aging flie showed intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction in this ‘Smurf’assay.
Sperm maturation
A indiviualization complex of the drosophila melanogaster testis. Green is the DJ–GFP，blue is Caspase3 and red is actin.
