GAL4-RESPONSIVE UAS-TAU AS A TOOL FOR STUDYING THE ANATOMY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE DROSOPHILA CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM

To improve the quality of cytoplasmic labelling of GAL4-expressing cel ls in Drosophila enhancer-trap and transgenic strains, a new GAL4-resp onsive reporter UAS-tau, which features a bovine tau cDNA under contro l of a yeast upstream activation sequence (UAS), was tested. Tau, a mi crotubule-associated protein, is distributed actively and evenly into all cellular processes. Monoclonal anti-bovine Tau antibody reveals th e axonal structure of the labelled cells with detail similar to that o f Golgi impregnation. We demonstrate that the UAS-tau system is especi ally useful for studying processes of differentiation and reorganisati on of identified neurones during postembryonic development.