title: The Drosophila lingerer protein cooperates with Orb2 in long-term memory formation.
abstract: Recently mated Drosophila females were shown to be reluctant to copulate and to exhibit rejecting behavior when courted by a male. Males that experience mate refusal by a mated female subsequently attenuate their courtship effort toward not only mated females but also virgin females. This courtship suppression persists for more than a day, and thus represents long-term memory. The courtship long-term memory has been shown to be impaired in heterozygotes as well as homozygotes of mutants in orb2, a locus encoding a set of CPEB RNA-binding proteins. We show that the impaired courtship long-term memory in orb2-mutant heterozygotes is restored by reducing the activity of lig, another putative RNA-binding protein gene, yet on its own the loss-of-function lig mutation is without effect. We further show that Lig forms a complex with Orb2. We infer that a reduction in the Lig levels compensates the Orb2 deficiency by mitigating the negative feedback for Orb2 expression and thereby alleviating defects in long-term memory.
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurogenetics, Tohoku University Graduate School of Life Sciences , Sendai , Japan.
authors.forename: Shingo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Yasufumi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sakakibara
authors.forename: Kosei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ote
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koganezawa
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D015638:Cytochalasin D / Q000494:pharmacology; D004330:Drosophila; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D051860:Fragile X Messenger Ribonucleoprotein 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D047468:Immunoprecipitation; D008297:Male; D057567:Memory, Long-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D034622:RNA Interference / Q000502:physiology; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D014162:Transfection; D039221:mRNA Cleavage and Polyadenylation Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D015638:Cytochalasin D; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D051860:Fragile X Messenger Ribonucleoprotein 1; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; D039221:mRNA Cleavage and Polyadenylation Factors; C467328:FMR1 protein, Drosophila; C585454:Lig protein, Drosophila; C529066:Orb2 protein, Drosophila
keywords: Courtship; RNA-binding proteins; fruit fly; memory mutants; protein–protein interaction