Journal article
Conditional modification of behavior in Drosophila by targeted expression of a temperature-sensitive shibire allele in defined neurons
Journal of neurobiology, Vol.47(2), pp.81-92
05/2001
DOI: 10.1002/neu.1018
PMID: 11291099
Abstract
Behavior is a manifestation of temporally and spatially defined neuronal activities. To understand how behavior is controlled by the nervous system, it is important to identify the neuronal substrates responsible for these activities, and to elucidate how they are integrated into a functional circuit. I introduce a novel and general method to conditionally perturb anatomically defined neurons in intact Drosophila. In this method, a temperature-sensitive allele of shibire (shits1) is overexpressed in neuronal subsets using the GAL4/UAS system. Because the shi gene product is essential for synaptic vesicle recycling, and shits1 is semidominant, a simple temperature shift should lead to fast and reversible effects on synaptic transmission of shits1 expressing neurons. When shits1 expression was directed to cholinergic neurons, adult flies showed a dramatic response to the restrictive temperature, becoming motionless within 2 min at 30°C. This temperature-induced paralysis was reversible. After being shifted back to the permissive temperature, they readily regained their activity and started to walk in 1 min. When shits1 was expressed in photoreceptor cells, adults and larvae exhibited temperature-dependent blindness. These observations show that the GAL4/UAS system can be used to express shits1 in a specific subset of neurons to cause temperature-dependent changes in behavior. Because this method allows perturbation of the neuronal activities rapidly and reversibly in a spatially and temporally restricted manner, it will be useful to study the functional significance of particular neuronal subsets in the behavior of intact animals.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Conditional modification of behavior in Drosophila by targeted expression of a temperature-sensitive shibire allele in defined neurons
- Creators
- Toshihiro Kitamoto
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of neurobiology, Vol.47(2), pp.81-92
- DOI
- 10.1002/neu.1018
- PMID
- 11291099
- NLM abbreviation
- J Neurobiol
- ISSN
- 0022-3034
- eISSN
- 1097-4695
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Inc; New York
- Number of pages
- 12
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation (IBN‐9723216.)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/2001
- Academic Unit
- Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Anesthesia; Neuroscience and Pharmacology
- Record Identifier
- 9984006302602771
Metrics
28 Record Views