ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENTIAL GENE-EXPRESSION IN THE CENTRAL-NERVOUS-SYSTEM OF SCHISTOCERCA-GREGARIA BY DIFFERENTIAL DISPLAY PCR

Within the optic lobes. the mushroom bodies or other parts of the inse ct brain, information is processed in an area-specific manner. To stud y the molecular basis of the abilities of the respective areas, the ce ntral nervous system of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria was di ssected into different parts, the optic lobes, the ''midbrain'', and t he thoracic ganglia. Using a simple electrophoretic approach we were a ble to show area-specific expression of proteins exclusively present i n the optic lobes. To study brain area-specific gene expression in mor e detail, we adapted the differential display polymerase chain reactio n to the specific needs of this project. A number of differentially ex pressed amplicons were identified. The majority of them could be reamp lified and their differential expression verified by northern blot ana lysis. To demonstrate the efficiency of the approach two amplicons wit h complementary expression patterns were further analysed.