Molecular genetic and anatomical analysis of the enteric nervous system in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

The enteric nervous system (ENS) constitutes the major section of the peripheral nervous system. ENS forms gut-axes by connecting the gut with other organs and plays key roles in inter-organ communications. In particular, the gut-brain axis has been implicated with a number of neurological disorders. Our limited understanding of ENS, mainly due to its inherent complexity makes it difficult to understand the precise roles of the gut-brain axis in diverse biological processes and associated disorders. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is genetically amenable and easy to manipulate genetically. However, our understanding of the fruit fly ENS is largely limited. Here, I identified 48 GAL4 transgenes that are expressed in specific enteric neurons and described their expression patterns in a single cell resolution using light-sheet microscopy. This work will provide important resources useful for future molecular genetic analyses, which aim to clarify the roles of enteric neurons in neurological disorders and biological processes associated with the gut-brain axis.