Male Drosophila genital imaginal disc during the pupal stage showing mesenchyme-to-epithelial transitions.Drosophila hearts. The upper one is the heart of a wild type, i.e. normal, fly, while the interesting one below shows what happens when two particular genes of the Forkhead family are defective. Mutations in the counterparts of these genes cause congenital heart defects in humansBeating cardiomyocytes (heart cells) obtained by directing human induced pluripotent human stem cells (hiPSCs) along the cardiac lineage
 

Publications

Panta, M., Kump, A. J., Schwab, K. R., and Ahmad, S. M. (2022). Assessing the Roles of Potential Notch Signaling Components in Instructive and Permissive Pathways with Two Drosophila Pericardial Reporters. Methods in Molecular Biology 2472, 109-130. application-pdf.pngDownload (750 KB)

Kump, A. J., Panta, M., Schwab, K. R., Inlow, M. H., and Ahmad, S. M. (2021). The Drosophila Forkhead/Fox transcription factor Jumeau mediates specific cardiac progenitor cell divisions by regulating expression of the kinesin Nebbish. Scientific Reports 11, 3221.application-pdf.pngDownload - (3.30 MB)

Panta, M., Kump, A. J., Dalloul, J. M., Schwab, K. R., and Ahmad, S. M. (2020). Three distinct mechanisms, Notch instructive, permissive, and independent, regulate the expression of two different pericardial genes to specify cardiac cell subtypes. PLoS ONE 15, e0241191. application-pdf.pngDownload - (3.32 MB)

Ahmad, S. M. (2017). Conserved signaling mechanisms in Drosophila heart development. Developmental Dynamics 246, 641-656. application-pdf.pngDownload - (748 KB)

Ahmad, S. M., Bhattacharyya, P., Jeffries, N., Gisselbrecht, S. S. and Michelson, A. M. (2016). Two Forkhead transcription factors regulate cardiac progenitor specification by controlling the expression of receptors of the fibroblast growth factor and Wnt signaling pathways. Development 143, 306-317. application-pdf.pngDownload - (2.96 MB)

Ahmad, S. M., Busser, B. W., Huang, D., Cozart, E. J., Michaud, S., Zhu, X., Jeffries, N., Aboukhalil, A., Bulyk, M.L., Ovcharenko, I. and Michelson, A. M. (2014).  Machine learning classification of cell-specific cardiac enhancers uncovers developmental subnetworks regulating progenitor cell division and cell fate specification.  Development 141, 878-888. application-pdf.pngDownload- (5.55 MB)

Ahmad, S. M., Tansey, T. R., Busser, B. W., Nolte, M. T., Jeffries, N., Gisselbrecht, S. S., Rusan, N. M. and Michelson, A. M. (2012).  Two Forkhead transcription factors regulate the division of cardiac progenitor cells by a Polo-dependent pathway.  Developmental Cell 23, 97-111. application-pdf.pngDownload- (1.13 MB)

Zhu, X., Ahmad, S. M., Aboukhalil, A., Busser, B. W., Kim, Y., Tansey, T. R., Haimovich, A., Jeffries, N., Bulyk, M. L. and Michelson, A. M. (2012).  Differential regulation of mesodermal gene expression by Drosophila cell type-specific Forkhead transcription factors.  Development 139, 1457-1466. application-pdf.pngDownload- (1.07 MB)

Ahmad, S. M. and Baker, B. S. (2002).  Sex-specific deployment of FGF signaling in Drosophila recruits mesodermal cells into the male genital imaginal disc.  Cell 109, 651-661. application-pdf.pngDownload - (448 KB)

Highlighted in Science “Perspective”:  Burtis, K. C. (2002).  Doublesex in the middle.  Science 297, 1135-1136. application-pdf.pngDownload- (260 KB)

Christiansen, A. E., Keisman, E. L., Ahmad, S. M. and Baker, B. S. (2002).  Sex comes in from the cold.  Trends in Genetics 18, 510-516. application-pdf.pngDownload - (189 KB)