Muscular system in most of animals is responsible for their locomotion as well as movement of internal organs under the control of nervous system. Many genes are involved in the process including adrenaline/noradrenaline in vertebrates. Insect muscular system is considered a powerful tool in studying genes involved in this process . Drosophila is an excellent model organism for muscle research due to its well-developed genetics and the availability of techniques to study its muscle structure and physiology. In the present study, reverse-genetic (RNAi) approaches were used to specifically silencing endogenous mRNA of Drosophila OctbetaRs, counterparts of beta adrenergic receptors of vertebrates to define the role of octopamine receptors genes in the maintenance of striated muscle architecture. Results revealed myofibrillar and/or mitochondrial morphologies disruption of leg muscles due to OctßRs gene silencing indicated that those genes are required in adults to maintain normal leg muscle architecture. The present effort indicated that Drosophila is a useful model for studying the abnormalities of skeletal muscles which may leads to specific myopathy found in the human population.
Key words: Drosophila, OctßRs, muscular system, leg muscles.
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