Fly by RYR

Ryanodine receptors (RYR) are essential for muscles to be able to contract and for other kinds of cell signalling throughout the body. Depending on which RYR gene is affected, people with mutations can manifest life-threatening malignant hyperthermia (reaction to anaesthesia meds), central core disease a congenital defect, or other heart, muscle and nervous effects. With a fruit fly model for manipulating RYR, researchers show the impact of a human RYR1 variant on fly muscle development, and having established this screening system will be able to glean the consequences of other human variants in the future. Muscles are shown developing over time (0-1.5 hours top to bottom) from normal (left column) and RyR-mutated (right) flies

Read the published research article here

Image made using a Leica Microsystems SP8 confocal microscope

Written by Lindsey Goff

Lindsey Goff

Editor-in-Chief

Formerly immunologist for Cancer Research UK, Lindsey has since moved into the field of scientific publishing. She looks after all BPoD editorial matters.

• Image from work by Monika Zmojdzian and Teresa Jagla, and colleagues
• Institute of Genetics Reproduction and Development, INSERM U1103, CNRS UMR6293, Université Clermont Ferrand, France
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, May 2026