Effects of high sugar diet on gene expression in the Drosophila labellum

Driven by findings that exposure to a high sugar diet reduced taste sensation in Drosophila, we performed RNA-seq on isolated proboscis tissue from animals that had either received a sugar diet or a control diet. Subsequently, we also profiled expression of animals expressing an RNAi construct to knock down OGT transcript levels in Gr5a+ neurons. There are two subexperiments given here. The first concerns the difference in gene expression in the proboscises of flies fed a sugar diet for seven days (SD) vs. age-matched flies on a control diet (CD). Two biological replicates are included for each sample type. The second subexperiment concerns the expression profile in the proboscis for flies that are Gr5a-Gal4→OGT-RNAi (RNAi) vs Gal4/+ genetic controls (Gal), both after seven days of exposure to high sugar diet. Four to five biological replicates are included for each condition in the second subexperiment.