Meeting Abstract

P1.42  Monday, Jan. 4  Differential Gene Expression during Diapause in the Flesh Fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis by Subtractive Hybridization Library Screening JOPLIN, Karl H*; SEIER, Edith; KARKI, Puja; BRAY, Alicia; ETSU; ETSU; ETSU; ETSU joplin@etsu.edu

Diapause is a strategy that many insects use to survive seasonally recurring unfavorable environmental conditions. Facultative diapause has been shown to be more than simple quiescence but is instead a genetically programmed developmental state that is initiated in response to environmental cues that predicts future environmental extremes. Thus, facultative diapause is an optional, inducible developmental state with dynamic processes that are responses of the organism to its environment. The Flesh Fly, Sarcophaga crassipalpis, in response to the environmental cue of short days (actually long, uninterrupted nights), in a circadian gated process, are induced to express the diapause alternative developmental state which enables them to survive cold winter months in a temperate environment. The developmentally distinct state of diapause is characterized by a syndrome of unique physiological functions not seen in the non-diapausing pupal stage. As such, this model organism represents a remarkable system to investigate physiological responses to environmental cues, developmental control pathways, and molecular aspects of physiological states. We have explored the differential gene expression of diapause by screening suppressive subtractive cDNA libraries of both diapause and non-diapause pupal stages. The results show that the heat shock and ribosomal protein subunits are highly up-regulated during diapause and that transcription factors are up-regulated during non-diapause pupal stages.