Figure 8.—

Mushroom body expression of kcc functions as a global seizure suppressor. Expression of a UAS-kcc⁺ transgene in the Drosophila mushroom bodies significantly reduces the behavioral seizure susceptibility of flies carrying either the easily shocked (eas) or bang-senseless (bss) bang-sensitive mutation. Whereas all of the eas + c739 control flies are bang sensitive, only 66% of their eas + c739 + UAS-kcc⁺ siblings that express kcc⁺ ectopically in their mushroom bodies display the bang-sensitive phenotype. Similarly, although nearly half (49%) of control bss/+ heterozygotes carrying c739 are bang sensitive, only 14% bang sensitivity is observed in their bss/+ test siblings carrying UAS-kcc⁺ as well as c739. In the first experiment, eas virgin females (MR047) were crossed to D610 males carrying the c739 MB GAL4 driver and a UAS-kcc⁺ transgene over a TM6B balancer chromosome, and the percentage bang sensitivity of eas + c739 + UAS-kcc⁺ male progeny compared to that of their eas + c739 control brothers. In the second experiment, bss virgin females (MR068) were crossed to D610 males and the percentage bang sensitivity of the bss/+ female test progeny carrying c739 and UAS-kcc⁺ compared to that of their control sisters lacking the UAS-kcc⁺ transgene. n > 70; (**) P < 0.001.