Title: | Pre-imaginal conditioning alters adult sex pheromone response in Drosophila |
Author(s): | Everaerts C; Cazale-Debat L; Louis A; Pereira E; Farine JP; Cobb M; Ferveur JF; |
Address: | "Centre des Sciences du Gout et de l'Alimentation, Agrosup-UMR 6265 CNRS, UMR 1324 INRA, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom" |
ISSN/ISBN: | 2167-8359 (Print) 2167-8359 (Electronic) 2167-8359 (Linking) |
Abstract: | "Pheromones are chemical signals that induce innate responses in individuals of the same species that may vary with physiological and developmental state. In Drosophila melanogaster, the most intensively studied pheromone is 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA), which is synthezised in the male ejaculatory bulb and is transferred to the female during copulation. Among other effects, cVA inhibits male courtship of mated females. We found that male courtship inhibition depends on the amount of cVA and this effect is reduced in male flies derived from eggs covered with low to zero levels of cVA. This effect is not observed if the eggs are washed, or if the eggs are laid several days after copulation. This suggests that courtship suppression involves a form of pre-imaginal conditioning, which we show occurs during the early larval stage. The conditioning effect could not be rescued by synthetic cVA, indicating that it largely depends on conditioning by cVA and other maternally-transmitted factor(s). These experiments suggest that one of the primary behavioral effects of cVA is more plastic and less stereotypical than had hitherto been realised" |
Keywords: | Cis-vaccenyl acetate Courtship inhibition Plasticity Pre-imaginal conditioning; |
Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEEveraerts, Claude Cazale-Debat, Laurie Louis, Alexis Pereira, Emilie Farine, Jean-Pierre Cobb, Matthew Ferveur, Jean-Francois eng 2018/10/04 PeerJ. 2018 Sep 27; 6:e5585. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5585. eCollection 2018" |