If modulation of SLO-1 activity represents a significant component of AFT then it is possible that the increased TAG levels associated with loss of lips-7 or sir-2.1 function are acting to either protect the SLO-1 protein from ethanol or are reducing overall activity of the SLO-1 protein, or both. If the action of this increase in TAGs is to reduce overall activity of SLO-1 then we predicted that we should be able to observe an inhibitory effect on SLO-1 function in the lips-7 and sir-2.1 mutants in the absence of ethanol. Reduced SLO-1 function in the slo-1 mutant causes an increase in the amplitude of the locomotion waveform (loopy motion phenotype, Figure 4a), and we observed that both lips-7 and sir-2.1 mutants are loopy (Figure 4a). In contrast, we predicted that in a ctbp-1 mutant, in which there is a decrease in TAGs, there should be an increase in SLO-1 activation, which should lead to the opposite phenotype, a flattened body waveform. Consistent with the prediction, we found that ctbp-1 mutants are flat relative to N2 (Figure 4a).
