Odd-skippedcontrols neurite morphology and affect cell survival inDrosophila Melanogaster CNS

Abstract

AbstractThe transcription factorOdd-skippedhas been implicated in many developmental processes inDrosophila melanogaster.Odd-skippedis expressed in a small cluster of neurons (Slater, Levy et al.) in the developing and adult CNS but its role in neurogenesis has so far not been addressed. Here we show thatOdd-skippedplays a pivotal role in neurite growth and arborization during development. Loss-of-Odd-skippedfunction prevents neurite outgrowth whereas over and miss-expression causes neurite growth and arborization defects. In addition, miss-expression ofOdd-skippedcan induce cell death in some neural sub types. The neurite growth and arborization defects associated withOdd-skippedover expression correlates with a reduction in the pre-synaptically targeted protein Bruchpilot in axonal arbours suggesting an overall decrease in Odd neural synapse formation. This is supported by behavioural data showing that larvae in whichOdd-skippedis overexpressed behave similarly to larvae in which Odd neurons are silenced showing that increasingOdd-skippedprotein levels affect neural function. Finally, we demonstrate that using RNAi againstOdd-skippeddoes not knock downOdd-skippedprotein but instead cause an increase in protein levels compared to control larvae. This data demonstrates that RNAi can cause up-regulation of protein levels highlighting the importance of verifying protein levels when using RNAi approaches for knock-down.