“Molecular Basis of Compensatory Neuronal Regeneration in the Cricket Auditory System.”

Hadley Wilson Horch, Ph.D., Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011

One of the most striking examples of compensatory neuronal regeneration occurs in the cricket central nervous system. Upon denervation, auditory interneurons in the cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus) sprout new dendrites which grow across the mid-line and form synaptic connections with the auditory neurons from the contralateral ear. In order to elucidate the molecular basis of this compensatory regeneration, control and three-day

denervated ganglia were screened with forward and reverse suppression subtractive hybridization. A screen of 288 clones revealed no upregulated genes, while over 50 genes were downregulated. One of these candidates, UBR1, is a protein involved in the ubiquitin proteasome system which may act to regulate the rate of synaptic protein

degradation and thus synaptic strength. In order to explore UBR1’s involvement in regeneration and subsequent synapse formation, my SOMAS summer student will use in situ hybridization to examine the expression patterns of UBR1 at several stages of regeneration.

Hadley Wilson Horch, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience
Bowdoin College
6500 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011
Phone: 207-798-4128
Fax: 207-725-3405
hhorch@bowdoin.edu