Nine neurons were labeled by the nan reporter in each hemi-segment and 6 of them were co-labelled with iav-Gal4. Among these 6 neurons, one was located in thoracic internal organs, one under the mouth hook, one in the mouth that may belong to the labial organ, two in the terminal organ, and one in the dorsolateral part of the terminal organ and are identified as chordotonal neurons. The remaining three neurons are separately located in the terminal organ, dorsal organ, and ventral organ and are likely es organ neurons.
nanGAL4 larvae show decreased head-touch response.
nanGAL4 mutant adults show defects in sensing food hardness and in contrast to wild-type display diminished preference for softer food with lower sugar content (0.5mM sucrose, 0.2% agarose) to a hard food with higher sugar content (1mM sucrose, 2% agarose) in a binary choice assay.