Mushroom body-specific profiling of gene expression identifies regulators of long-term memory in Drosophila
- Widmer, Yves F. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- Bilican, Adem Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit, University of Bern, Switzerland
- Bruggmann, Rémy Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit, University of Bern, Switzerland
- Sprecher, Simon G. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
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18.12.2017
English
Memory formation is achieved by genetically tightly controlled molecular pathways that result in a change of synaptic strength and synapse organization. While for short- term memory traces rapidly acting biochemical pathways are in place, the formation of long-lasting memories requires changes in the transcriptional program of a cell. Although many genes involved in learning and memory formation have been identified, little is known about the genetic mechanisms required for changing the transcriptional program during different phases of long-term memory formation. With Drosophila melanogaster as a model system we profiled transcriptomic changes in the mushroom body, a memory center in the fly brain, at distinct time intervals during long- term memory formation using the targeted DamID technique. We describe the gene expression profiles during these phases and tested 33 selected candidate genes for deficits in long-term memory formation using RNAi knockdown. We identified 10 genes that enhance or decrease memory when knocked-down in the mushroom body. For vajk-1 and hacd1, the two strongest hits, we gained further support for their crucial role in learning and forgetting. These findings show that profiling gene expression changes in specific cell-types harboring memory traces provides a powerful entry point to identify new genes involved in learning and memory. The presented transcriptomic data may further be used as resource to study genes acting at different memory phases.
- Faculty
- Faculté des sciences et de médecine
- Department
- Département de Biologie
- Language
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- English
- Classification
- Biological sciences
- License
- License undefined
- Identifiers
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- RERO DOC 306712
- DOI 10.1101/235960
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/306386
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