Transcriptomic analysis of gene expression in adult Drosophila hemocytes

Hemocytes are phagocytic blood cells that act as the first line of defense against bacterial pathogens in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. To gain insight into the immune-regluated transcriptional response in this cell type, we sequenced uninfected, mock (PBS) infected, and Staphylococcus aureus infected hemocytes collected from adult flies. Wildtype and A2bp1 RNAi hemocytes expressing a mouse-CD8-GFP fusion protein were isolated using immunselection and sequenced using 50bp single end reads on an Illumina HiSeq platform. A2bp1 RNAi hemocytes express the TRiP short hairpin RNA HMS00478 (which targets all isoforms of Ataxin-2 binding protein 1) under the hemolectin?GAL4 promoter. Overall design: Examination of gene expression profiles in phagocytic blood cells from adult fruit flies. 18 RNA samples were analyzed by RNAseq (3 replicates x 3 treatments x 2 genotypes). Treatments were uninfected, mock-infected and S. aureus-infected. Genotypes were wild-type and RNAi vs. A2BP1.