MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF LARVAL DROSOPHILA ASTROCYTES IN THE VNC
Publisher
The University of Arizona.Rights
Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.Abstract
Understanding the ongoing signaling between neurons and glial cells requires a detailed analysis of glial cell morphology and physiology. In particular, the shapes and distribution of glial cells help to dictate roles astrocytes play in regulating neuronal function. In each segment of the ventral nerve cord of Drosophila, the neuropil is organized into distinct motor, interneuron, and sensory neuropils. Each hemisegment of the neuropil is served by six astrocytes, with somas in characteristic positions around the edge of neuropil. Here we use Flp-out (Ito et al., 1997) and MultiColor FlpOut (Viswanathan et al., 2015) genetic constructs targeted to astrocytes via the alrm-GAL4 driver (Doherty et al., 2009) to generate high-resolution images of astrocytes. Our examination of individual astrocytes, and the interfaces between adjacent astrocytes has revealed that (1) astrocytes have three morphological classes along with the identification of features such as wrapping/following FasII-positive axon bundles, midline crossing, single protruding processes, and a process leaving the CNS via the segmental nerve astrocytes display, (2) the arbors of individual astrocytes span multiple functional neural domains and (3) astrocytic branches have convoluted spatial domains, in which the finest distal branches of adjacent astrocytes interweave with a variable, but small, amount of interdigitation.Type
textElectronic Thesis
Degree Name
B.S.Degree Level
BachelorsDegree Program
Honors CollegeNeuroscience and Cognitive Science