Genome and RNA sequencing reveal that P{RS5}FoxP5-SZ-3955 is transcribed within exon 8, resulting in a premature stop codon such that the putative isoform B protein is truncated at position 486 (about 93% of the original size) and its final amino acid is changed to an alanine instead of asparatic acid.
FoxPdel/FoxP5-SZ-3955 transheterozygotes show a significant decrease in light-off jump habituation, as they show a considerably higher jump response during the entire course of the assay, as compared to controls.
FoxP5-SZ-3955 mutant αβc Kenyon cells in adult males have similar resting membrane potential and spike threshold, but significantly increased spike latency, and significantly decreased input resistance and membrane time constants, compared to controls; firing rate as a function of depolarizing current strength is significantly reduced, compared to controls; spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents at -90 mV holding potential are similar to those of controls, but spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic potentials at holding potentials closer to resting potential are smaller and decay faster; A-type potassium current densities are significantly increased, compared to controls, with no effect on their steady state activation or inactivation curves; mutant &gar;βc Kenyon cells also have decreased responsiveness to changes in odor concentration, compared to controls; there is no effect on electrophysiological properties of &gar;'β'c Kenyon cells, compared to controls.
In behavioural experiments measuring flight performance, tethered FoxPc03619 flies show similar flying times than do Canton S controls.
FoxP5-SZ-3955/Df(3R)ED5438 and homozygous FoxP5-SZ-3955 flies are specifically impaired in operant self-learning, but their world-learning performance is normal.
Homozygous FoxP5-SZ-3955 mutants show a significant impairment in habit formation after extended world-learning.
Homozygous FoxP5-SZ-3955 mutant flies show subtle morphological alterations compared with wild-type. The general brain anatomy, structure, shape and relative position of the major neuropils do not differ markedly between wild-type and mutants. However, quantitative volumetric analysis of eleven major neuropils reveal that optic glomeruli are significantly smaller in the mutant flies than in controls. The relative volume data of all neuropils also appear statistically different between mutant and control groups.
Expression of ShalDN.UAS.Tag:HA under the control of Scer\GAL4NP6024, significantly reduces reaction times of FoxP5-SZ-3955 mutant adult males discriminating between different concentrations of an odor, with no effect on accuracy, compared to controls.
