Effect of transgenic RNAi on wandering third instar larval fat body gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster

We compared four transcription factor knockdowns using transgenic RNAi expressed in the larval fat body. FOXO, Tfb1, p53, and Stat92E-dependent gene expression in the Drosophila fat body was quantified on control and high-sugar diets in order to generate expression profiles via RNA-seq. These expression data were used to build a gene regulatory network to predict novel roles for these and other genes during caloric overload. Control and fat body-expressed transcription factor RNAi Drosophila were reared on control (0.15M sucrose) and high-sugar (0.7M or 1M sucrose) diets until the wandering stage. Fat bodies were isolated and RNA extracted to determine the effects of diet on gene expression using Illumina RNA-seq.