TY - JOUR
T1 - Contact chemoreceptors mediate male-male repulsion and male-female attraction during drosophila courtship
AU - Thistle, Robert
AU - Cameron, Peter
AU - Ghorayshi, Azeen
AU - Dennison, Lisa
AU - Scott, Kristin
N1 - Funding Information:
The Scott lab provided helpful comments and discussion. Dr. Gautam Agarwal provided MATLAB advice, and Dr. Seth Ament performed the ANOVA analysis. Dr. Charles Zuker provided UAS-GCaMP3 flies. R.T. is supported by a predoctoral NSF fellowship; P.C. was supported by a predoctoral NRSA fellowship, F31DC009389. This research was supported by a grant from the NIDCD, 1R01DC009470. K.S. is an Early Career Scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. R.T. performed most experiments, including Gal4 expression studies, calcium imaging, and behavioral assays and cowrote the paper. P.C. generated Δ ppk23 and Δ ppk29 , Gal4 , and UAS transgenic animals, made isogenic lines, and carried out expression studies. A.G. assisted R.T. with behavior. L.D. generated ppk28-LexA and contributed to in situ experiments. K.S. supervised the project, cowrote the manuscript, and performed expression studies.
PY - 2012/5/25
Y1 - 2012/5/25
N2 - The elaborate courtship ritual of Drosophila males is dictated by neural circuitry established by the transcription factor Fruitless and triggered by sex-specific sensory cues. Deciphering the role of different stimuli in driving courtship behavior has been limited by the inability to selectively target appropriate sensory classes. Here, we identify two ion channel genes belonging to the degenerin/epithelial sodium channel/pickpocket (ppk) family, ppk23 and ppk29, which are expressed in fruitless-positive neurons on the legs and are essential for courtship. Gene loss-of-function, cell-inactivation, and cell-activation experiments demonstrate that these genes and neurons are necessary and sufficient to inhibit courtship toward males and promote courtship toward females. Moreover, these cells respond to cuticular hydrocarbons, with different cells selectively responding to male or female pheromones. These studies identify a large population of pheromone-sensing neurons and demonstrate the essential role of contact chemosensation in the early courtship steps of mate selection and courtship initiation.
AB - The elaborate courtship ritual of Drosophila males is dictated by neural circuitry established by the transcription factor Fruitless and triggered by sex-specific sensory cues. Deciphering the role of different stimuli in driving courtship behavior has been limited by the inability to selectively target appropriate sensory classes. Here, we identify two ion channel genes belonging to the degenerin/epithelial sodium channel/pickpocket (ppk) family, ppk23 and ppk29, which are expressed in fruitless-positive neurons on the legs and are essential for courtship. Gene loss-of-function, cell-inactivation, and cell-activation experiments demonstrate that these genes and neurons are necessary and sufficient to inhibit courtship toward males and promote courtship toward females. Moreover, these cells respond to cuticular hydrocarbons, with different cells selectively responding to male or female pheromones. These studies identify a large population of pheromone-sensing neurons and demonstrate the essential role of contact chemosensation in the early courtship steps of mate selection and courtship initiation.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cell.2012.03.045
DO - 10.1016/j.cell.2012.03.045
M3 - Article
C2 - 22632976
AN - SCOPUS:84861536483
SN - 0092-8674
VL - 149
SP - 1140
EP - 1151
JO - Cell
JF - Cell
IS - 5
ER -