Abstract

The foraging gene in Drosophila melanogaster, which encodes a cGMP-dependent protein kinase, is a highly conserved, complex gene with multiple pleiotropic behavioral and physiological functions in both the larval and adult fly. Adult foraging expression is less well characterized than in the larva. We characterized foraging expression in the brain, gastric system, and reproductive systems using a T2A-Gal4 gene-trap allele. In the brain, foraging expression appears to be restricted to multiple sub-types of glia. This glial-specific cellular localization of foraging was supported by single-cell transcriptomic atlases of the adult brain. foraging is extensively expressed in most cell types in the gastric and reproductive systems. We then mapped multiple cis-regulatory elements responsible for parts of the observed expression patterns by a nested cloned promoter-Gal4 analysis. The mapped cis-regulatory elements were consistently modular when comparing the larval and adult expression patterns. These new data using the T2A-Gal4 gene-trap and cloned foraging promoter fusion GAL4’s are discussed with respect to previous work using an anti-FOR antibody, which we show here to be non-specific. Future studies of foraging’s function will consider roles for glial subtypes and peripheral tissues (gastric and reproductive systems) in foraging’s pleiotropic behavioral and physiological effects.

摘要

黑腹果蝇的觅食基因编码依赖于 cGMP 的蛋白激酶，是一种高度保守、复杂的基因，在幼虫和成蝇中具有多种行为和生理功能。成虫觅食表达的特征不如幼虫。我们使用T2A-Gal4基因陷阱等位基因表征了大脑、胃系统和生殖系统中的觅食表达。在大脑中，觅食表达似乎仅限于多种神经胶质细胞亚型。成人大脑的单细胞转录组图谱支持这种胶质细胞特异性细胞定位的觅食。觅食在胃和生殖系统的大多数细胞类型中广泛表达。然后，我们通过嵌套的克隆启动子-Gal4分析绘制了负责部分观察到的表达模式的多个顺式调节元件。在比较幼虫和成虫的表达模式时，映射的独联体调节元件始终是模块化的。这些使用T2A-Gal4基因陷阱和克隆的觅食启动子融合GAL4的新数据在之前使用抗 FOR 抗体的工作中进行了讨论，我们在此显示其是非特异性的。觅食的未来研究的功能将考虑神经胶质亚型和外周组织（胃和生殖系统）在觅食的多效行为和生理效应中的作用。