| Title: | Select interneuron clusters determine female sexual receptivity in Drosophila |
| Author(s): | Sakurai A; Koganezawa M; Yasunaga K; Emoto K; Yamamoto D; |
| Address: | "Division of Neurogenetics, Tohoku University Graduate School of Life Sciences, Sendai 980-8577, Japan" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2041-1723 (Electronic) 2041-1723 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Female Drosophila with the spinster mutation repel courting males and rarely mate. Here we show that the non-copulating phenotype can be recapitulated by the elimination of spinster functions from either spin-A or spin-D neuronal clusters, in the otherwise wild-type (spinster heterozygous) female brain. Spin-D corresponds to the olfactory projection neurons with dendrites in the antennal lobe VA1v glomerulus that is fruitless-positive, sexually dimorphic and responsive to fly odour. Spin-A is a novel local neuron cluster in the suboesophageal ganglion, which is known to process contact chemical pheromone information and copulation-related signals. A slight reduction in spinster expression to a level with a minimal effect is sufficient to shut off female sexual receptivity if the dominant-negative mechanistic target of rapamycin is simultaneously expressed, although the latter manipulation alone has only a marginal effect. We propose that spin-mediated mechanistic target of rapamycin signal transduction in these neurons is essential for females to accept the courting male" |
| Keywords: | Animals Copulation/drug effects Drosophila Proteins/metabolism Drosophila melanogaster/*cytology/drug effects/*physiology Female Heterozygote Homozygote Interneurons/*cytology/drug effects/metabolism Male Membrane Proteins/metabolism Neuroglia/cytology/dr; |
| Notes: | "MedlineSakurai, Akira Koganezawa, Masayuki Yasunaga, Kei-ichiro Emoto, Kazuo Yamamoto, Daisuke eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2013/05/09 Nat Commun. 2013; 4:1825. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2837" |
