Identification of Hr38 as a neural activity-induced gene. Bombyx mori

Silkworms show a reproductive behavior induced by sex pheromone. To elucidate the neral mechanism of sex pheromone induced sexual behavior in the silkworm, we attempted to use the neural activity-induced gene as a neural activity marker. Since no neural activity-induced gene was identified in the silkworm, we conducted screening of neural activity-induced gene using the male silkworm brain. By the screening, we identified Bhr38 as a novel neural activity-induced gene, and succeded to comprehensively map the active neruons in the silkworm brain in response to the sex pheromone exposure. Further, we found that Dhr38, the Drosophila homologue of Bhr38, also expressed in a neural activity dependent manner. These results strongly suggest that Hr38 is a highly conserved neural activity-induced gene. Overall design: The male silkworms were exposed to the female odor for 30 min (group P). Non-treated male silkworms were used as the control group group C. Ten brains were collected for each sample and stored at -80°C until use. Total RNA was isolated by the TRIzol reagent and subjected to microarray experiments using the custam made (8x16k) Oligo Microarray (Agilent Technologies, Inc.).