Title
Alcohol resistance in Drosophila is modulated by the Toll innate immune pathway
Date Issued
01 April 2016
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Troutwine B.
Pietrzykowski A.
Atkinson N.
The University of Texas at Austin
Publisher(s)
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Abstract
A growing body of evidence has shown that alcohol alters the activity of the innate immune system and that changes in innate immune system activity can influence alcohol-related behaviors. Here, we show that the Toll innate immune signaling pathway modulates the level of alcohol resistance in Drosophila. In humans, a low level of response to alcohol is correlated with increased risk of developing an alcohol use disorder. The Toll signaling pathway was originally discovered in, and has been extensively studied in Drosophila. The Toll pathway is a major regulator of innate immunity in Drosophila, and mammalian Toll-like receptor signaling has been implicated in alcohol responses. Here, we use Drosophila-specific genetic tools to test eight genes in the Toll signaling pathway for effects on the level of response to ethanol. We show that increasing the activity of the pathway increases ethanol resistance whereas decreasing the pathway activity reduces ethanol resistance. Furthermore, we show that gene products known to be outputs of innate immune signaling are rapidly induced following ethanol exposure. The interaction between the Toll signaling pathway and ethanol is rooted in the natural history of Drosophila melanogaster.
Start page
382
End page
394
Volume
15
Issue
4
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Genética, Herencia Neurología clínica
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84962850866
PubMed ID
Source
Genes, Brain and Behavior
ISSN of the container
1601-1848
Sponsor(s)
We thank the TRiP at Harvard Medical School (NIH/NIGMS R01-GM084947) for providing transgenic RNAi fly stocks used in this study. We thank Dr Y. T. Ip for providing the UAS-driven transgenes for Tol l , Dif , dorsal and Relish. This work was supported by NIH grant number 1F31AA021326-01 to B.R.T., NIH grant number 2R01AA018037-06A1 to N.S.A. and NIH grant numbers K08AA017481 and R01AA017920 to A.Z.P
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus