A 3038 base pair fragment from the flanking non-coding or intronic region of Fur1 is fused upstream of a Drosophila core synthetic promoter (DSCP) followed by sequence encoding a lexA::p65 driver. The driver sequence has been optimized for Drosophila codon usage. An Hsp70 transcriptional terminator is present.
EcollexAGMR26B12 drives expression in four antennal grooming brain interneuron 2. Projections of these neurons are closely associated with those of antennal grooming brain interneuron 1 expressing the split-GAL4 combination, ScerGAL4DBD.R34C03 and HsapRELAAD.R11B11, antennal grooming descending neuron 1 expressing the split-GAL4 combination ScerGAL4DBD.R71D01 and HsapRELAAD.R18C11 and antennal grooming descending neuron 2 expressing the split-GAL4 combination ScerGAL4DBD.R18C11 and HsapRELAAD.R76F12.
Thermogenetic activation (using TrpA113xlexAop.JFRC26 at 30-31[o]C) of Ecol\lexAGMR26B12 neurons results in a significant increase of antennal grooming behavior compared to control flies.
Although alleles from the Janelia Farm lexA driver collection incorporate the same enhancer fragments used to create the Janelia Farm GAL4 driver alleles (GMR_Brain_exp_1), significant differences are frequently observed in the expression pattern of a given enhancer fragment inserted in the P{CaryP}attP40 or other docking site compared to the same fragment inserted in the P{CaryP}attP2 docking site. Generally the Ecol\lexA patterns are subsets of the Scer\GAL4 patterns.