The Genetic Regulation of Octopaminergic Genes in Drosophila Melanogaster (2013)

Undergraduate: Sunny Patel

Faculty Advisor: Stephen Crews
Department: Economics

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Drosophila Melanogaster is a very suitable model organism that is often used to study genetic regulation. Over the course of this past academic year, my mentor Joseph Fontana and I have studied three genes that are involved in the biosynthesis and transport of Octopamine, the neurotransmitter equivalent of Epinephrine in humans. These three genes are TBh, Tdc2, and Vmat. When studying these three genes, our goal was to determine which transcription factors controlled the regulation of these Octopaminergic genes. In other words, which transcription factors were directly required to turn these three genes on and off? Through the use of Drosophila Embryo Collection, Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, and Confocal Microscopy, we determined that the transcription factor vg regulates the expression of Vmat, a gene required for the transport of Octopamine. In addition, we concluded that of the other transcription factors that we studied regulated the expression of the other two Octopaminergic genes, TBh, and Tdc2. Currently we are further proving these results by using RNA interference, and crossing two deficiency lines to decrease the number of genes deleted.