The neuropeptide Pigment Dispersing factor (PDF) is a potent internal synchronization signal.
The neuropeptide pigment dispersing factor (PDF) is required for several aspects of circadian activity rhythms in Drosophila.
The neuropeptide Pigment Dispersing Factor (PDF) [15] is expressed uniquely by and is the only known transmitter of the LNv.
In Drosophila, pigment-dispersing factor (PDF) is encoded on the Pdf gene (CG6496, [72]) and processed as predicted from the genome.
The central clock in flies is located in the ventral lateral neurons (LNvs), which specifically express the neuropeptide, pigment dispersing factor (PDF).
Changing Shaw levels in all clock neurons also disrupts the rhythmic accumulation and levels of Pigment Dispersing Factor (PDF) in the dorsal projections of LNv neurons.
This circuit includes eight neurons per brain hemisphere, four small and four large ventral Lateral Neurons (LNvs), which specifically express a neuropeptide called pigment dispersing factor (PDF, Fig. 1B) [1B].
Sixteen of these clock neurons - eight large ventral-lateral neurons (l-vLNs) and eight small ventro-lateral neurons (s-vLNs) - express the neuropeptide Pigment Dispersing Factor (PDF), which is required for several aspects of locomotor rhythms [16], [17].
Other peptidergic systems displaying partial overlap included DSK (Figure 8E), DMS (Figure 8F), Ast B, Ast C, LK, neuropeptide F (NPF-GAL4), pigment dispersing factor (PDF), dFMRFa, ITP, short neuropeptide F (sNPF), NPLP1, and DH 31.
Notably, both the introduction of a reporter gene (UAS-CD8-GFP) to corazonin cells and the ablation of a group of well-defined neurons that express a different neuropeptide, Pigment Dispersing Factor (PDF) [25], showed stress sensitivities that were generally comparable to the w1118 background controls under these heterotypic stresses (Figure 2).
To verify this, we measured the levels of the functionally critical circadian neuropeptide pigment dispersing factor (PDF) [12], [13], [17], [44] [48] levels in both the small and large LNv subsets in flies expressing control Q0-Htt versus pathogenic Q128-Htt driven by pdf-GAL4 to both LNv neuronal subsets.
