Sleep regulation in Drosophila

Pavón Arocas, Oriol (26. August 2015): Sleep regulation in Drosophila. Master Thesis, Faculty of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Abstract

Sleep is a ubiquitous process preserved across all types of animals, but its functional implications and the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms are far from being understood. In the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a group of neurons projecting to the dorsal Fan-shaped Body (dFB) are implicated in homeostatic sleep regulation and can induce sleep on demand upon activation. Dopamine is an aminergic neurotransmitter with wake-promoting effects. Work in our lab revealed a strong inhibitory effect of dopamine on dFB neurons suggesting that dopamine achieves its arousal effects via directly shutting down sleep-promoting dFB neurons. Here, I have used a photoactivatable GFP-based tracing method to identify a small number of dopaminergic neurons residing in the PPL1 cluster that send projections to dFB neurons. In parallel, I have carried out an in silico screen of Drosophila transgenic lines to look for potential pre- and post-synaptic partners of the dFB to discover new structures with a possible role in the neural mechanisms of sleep regulation in Drosophila.

• Item Type: LMU Munich: Thesis
• Keywords: sleep; arousal; Drosophila; dopamine; dorsal Fan-shaped Body; photoactivatable GFP
• Research Centers: Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences (GSN)
• Institut or Department: Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences
• Subjects: 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
• Language: English