The action of ADH is reversible; one possibility for the increase in ethanol sensitivity in alh-6 and alh-13 knock down animals is that the excess acetaldehyde in these animals is converted back to ethanol, thereby increasing the internal ethanol concentration. We observed an increase in internal ethanol concentration alh-6(RNAi) and alh-13(RNAi) but not alh-1(RNAi) (which did not show a change in behavior on ethanol) (Supplemental Figure 1), suggesting that one effect of loss of ALDH function may be through increasing the effective ethanol dose.
