A 2855 base pair fragment from the flanking non-coding or intronic region of EcR is fused upstream of a Drosophila core synthetic promoter (DSCP) followed by sequence encoding a lexA::p65 driver. The driver sequence has been optimized for Drosophila codon usage. An Hsp70 transcriptional terminator is present.
Thermogenetic activation (using TrpA1UAS.(B).cKa at 31.5[o]C) of Ecol\lexAGMR44E04 cells in adult males does not affect the amount of sleep, compared to controls; activation does not significantly affect locomotor activity of awake adult males, compared to controls.
Although alleles from the Janelia Farm lexA driver collection incorporate the same enhancer fragments used to create the Janelia Farm GAL4 driver alleles (GMR_Brain_exp_1), significant differences are frequently observed in the expression pattern of a given enhancer fragment inserted in the P{CaryP}attP40 or other docking site compared to the same fragment inserted in the P{CaryP}attP2 docking site. Generally the Ecol\lexA patterns are subsets of the Scer\GAL4 patterns.