Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published October 1, 1997 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Swiss Cheese Mutant Causes Glial Hyperwrapping and Brain Degeneration in Drosophila

Abstract

Swiss cheese (sws) mutant flies develop normally during larval life but show age-dependent neurodegeneration in the pupa and adult and have reduced life span. In late pupae, glial processes form abnormal, multilayered wrappings around neurons and axons. Degeneration first becomes evident in young flies as apoptosis in single scattered cells in the CNS, but later it becomes severe and widespread. In the adult, the number of glial wrappings increases with age. The sws gene is expressed in neurons in the brain cortex. The conceptual 1425 amino acid protein shows two domains with homology to the regulatory subunits of protein kinase A and to conceptual proteins of yet unknown function in yeast, worm, and human. Sequencing of two sws alleles shows amino acid substitutions in these two conserved domains. It is suggested that the novel SWS protein plays a role in a signaling mechanism between neurons and glia that regulates glial wrapping during development of the adult brain.

Additional Information

© 1997 Society for Neuroscience. Beginning six months after publication the Work will be made freely available to the public on SfN's website to copy, distribute, or display under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Received March 3, 1997; revised July 8, 1997; accepted July 11, 1997. This work was supported by fellowships to D.K. from the French Foundation for Alzheimer Research and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Kr 1507/1-1), and Research Grants to S.B. from the National Institute of Aging (AG12289), the National Eye Institute (EY09287), the National Science Foundation (MCB-9408718), the McKnight Foundation, and the James G. Boswell Foundation. We thank Rosalind Young and Lynette Dowling for excellent technical assistance and the members of Prof. Benzer's research group for valuable discussions. Special thanks are due to the sequencing and oligosynthesizing facilities at Caltech.

Attached Files

Published - 7425.full.pdf

Files

7425.full.pdf
Files (1.7 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:78126460ccc34c602153ee6d9dff3dab
1.7 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023