Fig. 7

Dfr-S and Dfr-L overexpression causes arrest at different developmental stages. a Schematic drawing of expression constructs for Dfr-S and Dfr-L respectively. A point mutation was introduced to change the stop codon TAG to a lysine codon, AAG. b Overexpression of UAS-dfr-S and UAS-dfr-L in larval PG using a temperature-sensitive Phm-Gal4 driver (Phm-Gal4[ts]). Immunoblot using anti-Dfr-S/L. Proteins were extracted from three BRGCs for each genotype. Actin was used as loading control. c–g Overexpression of UAS-dfr-S and UAS-dfr-L in larval PG using the Phm-Gal4 driver. c, d Overexpression of Dfr-S in the PG led to arrest at first larval instar (L1). The developmental arrest was partially rescued by 20E feeding (+20E). d Quantification of the relative larval volume. e–g Overexpression of Dfr-S in the PG. e Percentage of individuals in larval stage until entering pupariation (control, blue) or eventually succumbing to death (Dfr-L overexpressing larvae). Control larvae (phm-Gal4>) pupariated at around 5–6 days after larval hatching. phm-Gal4>UAS-dfr-L led to L3 arrest. The larvae were not able to pupariate and died in the end. f Representative images of larvae at indicated days ALH. phm-Gal4>UAS-dfr-L expression resulted in giant larvae. g Quantification of the relative larval volume in panel f. There was no significant difference in larval volume between phm-Gal4>UAS-dfr-L and control larvae at 5 days ALH. The phm-Gal4 > UAS-dfr-L larval volume increased with time