90 Oral - Neurobehavior I
Friday April 08, 11:00 AM - 11:15 AM

Authors:
Ina Anreiter ¹; Zixuan Xiao ¹; Vanessa Montemurri ²; Oscar Vasquez ¹; Aaron Allen ^1,3; Craig Smibert ¹; Jeffrey Dason ^1,2; Marla Sokolowski ¹

Affiliations:
1) University of Toronto; 2) University of Windsor; 3) Oxford University

Keywords:
k. feeding behavior; h. translational regulation

The regulation of two or more phenotypes by a single gene, behavioural pleiotropy, is a common occurrence. At the molecular level, these genes need to have structural and/or regulatory features that allow for this pleiotropy to occur. Here we dissect the regulation of independent Drosophila larval phenotypes through gene product specific regulation of the foraging gene by the 3’UTR binding protein Pumilio. foraging regulates larval movement on food (pathlength), food-intake, fat stores and nociception. We found that Pumilio binds the 3’UTR of foraging mRNA transcripts, regulating expression of the gene in a transcript and protein isoform-specific manner. While overall protein and mRNA levels are upregulated in Pumilio hypomorph mutants, specific transcripts are downregulated. We find that this transcriptional regulation of foraging by Pumilio plays a role in regulation larval food-intake, fat stores and nociception, but not larval pathlength. Interestingly, we find that in the case of larval fat stores and nociception, reduced Pumilio phenocopies the effect of a foraging over-expression phenotype, while in the case of larval food-intake reduced Pumilio phenocopies the effect of a foraging null phenotype. Together these findings suggest that Pumilio is a transcriptional regulator involved in the molecular regulation of pleiotropy by independent regulation of distinct products of a single gene, foraging.