page_title: Lewis Tilney
section_title: Drosophila
hierarchical_section_title: Lewis Tilney / Research and publications / Drosophila
caption_attribution_description: English: Drosophila paulistorum male.Svenska: Hanne av tvåvingearten Drosophila paulistorum.
context_page_description: Lewis G. Tilney is an American cell biologist and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University Medical School in 1964. Tilney is known for studying the cytoskeleton of animal cells, specifically how different components affect the cytoskeleton's overall properties.
context_section_description: Tilney’s research in Drosophila focused on the actin filaments. He observed the cross-linking of adjacent filaments and using forked proteins and fascin investigated how the bundles formed. He observed that in mutants, the aggregation of bundles did not occur which resulted in significantly smaller bundle sizes compared to the wild type. From this, he performed experiments using and removing cross-linking agents forked proteins and fascin to investigate each cross-linkers role in properly forming actin bundles. From his work, he reached the conclusions that forked proteins are used early in the process to aggregate smaller bundles into large ones and they also help the bundles come together. Forked proteins also help fascin entry into the bundles which allows the bundles to cross-link and align properly. He conducted further experiments using antibodies specific to fascin and the forked proteins to show when they were present in actin formation. From this research, he was able to identify that fascin was present predominantly during bundle elongation whereas the forked proteins were present during bundle formation and consequently played a significant role in the shape and size of the actin bundles. Further, it was demonstrated the amount of actin polymerization was also limited by the area where actin had the ability to adhere to connector material.  
caption: Drosophila
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