Figure 1.

IDE is important for body weight. (A) The broadly expressed T80-Gal4 driver was used to activate Ide RNAi in virtually all tissues during larval development. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis, using the same amount of total RNA isolated from 3^rd instar larvae of the same age, indicated that Ide mRNA was reduced by 77–87% in three independent Ide RNAi lines (T80G4/IDE^RNAi) compared to the control where the driver was crossed into the w¹¹¹⁸ background lacking the Ide RNAi construct (T80G4/+). (B) The broadly expressed act-Gal4 driver or the IPC-specific dilp2-Gal4 driver was used to activate Ide RNAi. The body weight increased by 25% in actG4/IDE^RNAi flies (n = 195) and by 21% in dilp2G4/IDE^RNAi flies (n = 134) when compared to the respective controls (actG4/+, n = 188; dilp2G4/+, n = 134). 7 day-old adult females were weighed. (C) Flies in which Ide expression is broadly activated (actG4/dIDE, n = 618) weighed 11% less than control flies (actG4/+, n = 878). Seven-day-old adult females were weighed. *p < 0.0002, two-tailed t-test. (D) IDE overexpressing flies (actG4/dIDE) were generally smaller than control flies (actG4/+). Flies of the two different genotypes were cultured separately but in parallel under identical conditions as possible to avoid over-crowding. The flies shown in this figure were randomly selected from culture vials and photographed about 1 day after eclosion.