论文部分内容阅读
The larva foraging behaviour is one example of a naturally occurring behavioural polymorphism. Natural populations can be divided into two groups according to the length of their locomotion while foraging. Most larvae display high mobility, and they are termed rovers, while around 30% of the population displays significantly lower mobility, sitters. This behaviour dimorphism is being controlled by two alleles of a single gene, dg2 or for gene. The dg2 is a cGMP dependent protein kinase (PKG) gene. Rovers have high levels of PKG activity and sitter low. We examined the role of the different transcripts of the dg2 gene in the foraging behaviour. We used the UAS-GAL4 system to increase the PKG levels by inserting copies of each of the transcript into flies carrying the sitter alleles. Alternatively we used dsRNA interference to disrupt the expression of the gene. Furthermore we investigated which set of neurons in the larvas brain, are part of the neuronal pathway controlling this behaviour. We found evidence that all three major transcripts of the dg2 gene have the same function regarding foraging behaviour. The addition of any of the three can increase the larvaes pathway length. By using different GAL4 lines to drive the expression of the inserted transcripts we uncover that the precursor neurons of the ellipsoid body and fan-shaped body are involved in this behaviour.