{"id":17282,"date":"2019-09-25T07:50:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T05:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=17282"},"modified":"2024-03-22T13:37:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:37:34","slug":"potw1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1939\/","title":{"rendered":"A giant called dumpy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fruit flies have something that we don\u2019t have: they produce a protein called dumpy. This protein is the largest created by insects, and is comparable in size to the largest human protein \u2013 titin. While titin is vital for our muscle function, dumpy connects the soft cells of the insect&#8217;s body with its tough, waterproof shell \u2013 the cuticle.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today\u2019s Picture of the Week was taken by Daniel Rios from the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.de\/research\/units\/directors_research\/leptin\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leptin group<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at EMBL Heidelberg. It shows a magnification of the peeled pupae of a fruit fly (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drosophila melanogaster<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). The blue colour shows the dumpy protein, covering almost the entire surface of the fly. In the top right corner, the eye of the insect is visible, also covered by the protein. The red dots correspond to tendon cells.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The gene that encodes dumpy breaks all records: it spans over 100 000 base pairs \u2013 the \u201cletters\u201d that make up our genetic code. This large gene encodes the information for the approximately 20 000 amino acids that dumpy is composed of. By comparison, human titin is composed of 34 000 amino acids.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.embl.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2143\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres-280x300.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres-768x823.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/potw1939_fullres-956x1024.jpg 956w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Credit: Daniel Rios\/EMBL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:mathias.jaeger@embl.de\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fruit flies have something that we don\u2019t have: they produce a protein called dumpy. This protein is the largest created by insects, and is comparable in size to the largest human protein \u2013 titin. While titin is vital for our muscle function, dumpy connects the soft cells of the insect&#8217;s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":17284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[478,833,531,820,616,11022],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-17282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-drosophila","tag-fruit-fly","tag-leptin","tag-picture-of-the-week","tag-protein","tag-spotlight"],"acf":{"article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53","show_featured_image":false,"field_target_display":"embl","field_article_language":{"value":"english","label":"English"},"source_article":false,"in_this_article":false,"press_contact":"None","article_translations":false,"languages":""},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A giant called dumpy | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1939\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A giant called dumpy | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fruit flies have something that we don\u2019t have: they produce a protein called dumpy. This protein is the largest created by insects, and is comparable in size to the largest human protein \u2013 titin. 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