Regulation of the lipase gene lips-7 has a significant effect on the development of AFT. In one model of how this lipase function affects AFT, fat levels in the animals could regulate ethanol effects because TAGs are the main stored fat in C. elegans. To test this hypothesis, we altered fat levels in the animals using genetic manipulations, and tested the effect on ethanol sensitivity and AFT development in our locomotion assay. If the changes in the level of stored fat in ctbp-1 and lips-7 mutants is the cause of the defect in AFT, then decreasing fat levels through genetic manipulation should cause a decrease in AFT (mimicking ctbp-1(eg613) mutants), while increasing fat levels should cause animals to be resistant to ethanol or fast developers of AFT (similar to lips-7 mutant animals). We tested several genes involved in regulating the levels of stored fat; mutations in these genes either yield increases or decreases in stored fat (Table 1). While several changes in fat levels did not cause an AFT phenotype, for those that did alter AFT, there was no consistent
