In multicellular organisms, different types of cells originate from single cell because of differential gene expression of Hox genes. The differential gene expression patterns are faithfully propagated in all cells as they divide mitotically and is called as transcriptional cellular memory or epigenetic cellular memory. In Drosophila, two groups of genes known as Polycomb group and trithorax group are involved in the maintenance of epigenetic cellular memory. Polycomb group genes (PcG) are involved in the silencing of genes and are called as transcriptional silencers whereas, trithorax group genes (TrxG) act as anti-silencing factors and they are responsible for maintaining activation of tissue specific genes. Genome-wide RNAi screen led to the discovery of more than 200 genes as potential trithorax group candidates. Among these candidates was BuGZ. BuGZ is a Bub3 interacting GLEBS and Zinc finger domain protein that is involved in the stabilization of Bub3 which is involved in mitotic checkpoint complex. BuGZ also interacts with Su(z)12 which is the part of PcG. This project aims to validate if BuGZ indeed behave as trxG genes by maintaining
activation states of trxG targets. Specifically, it was aimed to perform ex-vivo RNAi against BuGZ and monitor expression of non-homeotic targets of trxG which includes pnr, pnt and psq. Moreover, this study also aimed to clone full length BuGZ and prepare different epitope tagged BuGZ constructs.