The Role of the Flabellar and Ellipsoid Bodies of the Central Complex of the Brain of Drosophila Melanogaster in the Control of Courtship Behavior and Communicative Sound Production in Males

The development of the sensory neuron pattern in the antennal disc of Drosophila melanogaster was studied with a neuron-specific monoclonal antibody (22C10). In the wild type, the earliest neurons become visible 3 h after pupariation, much later than in other imaginal discs. They lie in the center of the disc and correspond to the neurons of the adult aristal sensillum. Their axons join the larval antennal nerve and seem to establish the first connection towards the brain. Later on, three clusters of neurons appear in the periphery of the disc. Two of them most likely give rise to the Johnston's organ in the second antennal segment. Neurons of the olfactory third antennal segment are formed only after eversion of the antennal disc (clusters t1-t3). The adult pattern of antennal neurons is established at about 27% of metamorphosis. In the mutant lozenge3 (lz3), which lacks basiconic antennal sensilla, cluster t3 fails to develop. This indicates that, in the wild type, a homogeneous group of basiconic sensilla is formed by cluster t3. The possible role of the lozenge gene in sensillar determination is discussed. The homeotic mutant spineless-aristapedia (ssa) transforms the arista into a leg-like tarsus. Unlike leg discs, neurons are missing in the larval antennal disc of ssa. However, the first neurons differentiate earlier than in normal antennal discs. Despite these changes, the pattern of afferents in the ectopic tarsus appears leg specific, whereas in the non-transformed antennal segments a normal antennal pattern is formed. This suggests that neither larval leg neurons nor early aristal neurons are essential for the outgrowth of subsequent afferents.

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Effect of LIM kin ase 1 is oform ratio on Drosophil a mel anogaster courtship behavior: a complex approach

Ecological genetics ◽

10.17816/ecogen943-14 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 3-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alena N Kaminskaya ◽

Ekaterina A Nikitina ◽

Tatyana L Payalina ◽

Dmitry A Molotkov ◽

Gennady A Zakharov ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sound Production ◽

Courtship Behavior ◽

Memory Formation ◽

Actin Remodeling ◽

Complex Approach ◽

Dendritic Spine Morphology ◽

Key Enzyme ◽

Set Up ◽

The Brain ◽

Type Strains

LIMK1 - is the key enzyme of actin remodeling which controls dendritic spine morphology necessary for synaptic plasticity during learning and memory formation. Conditioned courtship suppression paradigm and a set-up for communicative sound production during courtship were used to asses learning acquisition and memory formation in four Drosophila strains polymorphic for the limk1 gene harbored by the agnostic locus: the wild type strains Canton-S, Berlin, Oregon-R and the mutant аgnts3. Behavioral performances were compared to the brain content and ratio of two LIMK1 isoforms in these Drosophila strains.

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Genetic transformation of structural and functional circuitry rewires the Drosophila brain

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.04407 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Sonia Sen ◽

Deshou Cao ◽

Ramveer Choudhary ◽

Silvia Biagini ◽

Jing W Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Neural Circuits ◽

Projection Neuron ◽

Central Complex ◽

Neuronal Progenitor ◽

Drosophila Brain ◽

Circuit Formation ◽

Functional Circuitry ◽

The Brain

Acquisition of distinct neuronal identities during development is critical for the assembly of diverse functional neural circuits in the brain. In both vertebrates and invertebrates, intrinsic determinants are thought to act in neural progenitors to specify their identity and the identity of their neuronal progeny. However, the extent to which individual factors can contribute to this is poorly understood. We investigate the role of orthodenticle in the specification of an identified neuroblast (neuronal progenitor) lineage in the Drosophila brain. Loss of orthodenticle from this neuroblast affects molecular properties, neuroanatomical features, and functional inputs of progeny neurons, such that an entire central complex lineage transforms into a functional olfactory projection neuron lineage. This ability to change functional macrocircuitry of the brain through changes in gene expression in a single neuroblast reveals a surprising capacity for novel circuit formation in the brain and provides a paradigm for large-scale evolutionary modification of circuitry.

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Neuronal control of locomotor handedness in Drosophila

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1500804112 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 112 (21) ◽

pp. 6700-6705 ◽

Cited By ~ 70

Author(s):

Sean M. Buchanan ◽

Jamey S. Kain ◽

Benjamin L. de Bivort

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Exploratory Behavior ◽

Motor Planning ◽

Central Complex ◽

Leg Length ◽

Neuronal Control ◽

Significant Bias ◽

Locomotor Behaviors ◽

The Brain ◽

Wing Folding

Genetically identical individuals display variability in their physiology, morphology, and behaviors, even when reared in essentially identical environments, but there is little mechanistic understanding of the basis of such variation. Here, we investigated whether Drosophila melanogaster displays individual-to-individual variation in locomotor behaviors. We developed a new high-throughout platform capable of measuring the exploratory behavior of hundreds of individual flies simultaneously. With this approach, we find that, during exploratory walking, individual flies exhibit significant bias in their left vs. right locomotor choices, with some flies being strongly left biased or right biased. This idiosyncrasy was present in all genotypes examined, including wild-derived populations and inbred isogenic laboratory strains. The biases of individual flies persist for their lifetime and are nonheritable: i.e., mating two left-biased individuals does not yield left-biased progeny. This locomotor handedness is uncorrelated with other asymmetries, such as the handedness of gut twisting, leg-length asymmetry, and wing-folding preference. Using transgenics and mutants, we find that the magnitude of locomotor handedness is under the control of columnar neurons within the central complex, a brain region implicated in motor planning and execution. When these neurons are silenced, exploratory laterality increases, with more extreme leftiness and rightiness. This observation intriguingly implies that the brain may be able to dynamically regulate behavioral individuality.

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Role of Serotonin Transporter in Eye Development of Drosophila melanogaster

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms21114086 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (11) ◽

pp. 4086

Author(s):

Tuan L. A. Pham ◽

Tran Duy Binh ◽

Guanchen Liu ◽

Thanh Q. C. Nguyen ◽

Yen D. H. Nguyen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cell Death ◽

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Serotonin Transporter ◽

Compound Eye ◽

Eye Development ◽

S Phase ◽

Eye Disc ◽

Eye Imaginal Disc ◽

The Brain

Serotonin transporter (SerT) in the brain is an important neurotransmitter transporter involved in mental health. However, its role in peripheral organs is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the function of SerT in the development of the compound eye in Drosophila melanogaster. We found that SerT knockdown led to excessive cell death and an increased number of cells in S-phase in the posterior eye imaginal disc. Furthermore, the knockdown of SerT in the eye disc suppressed the activation of Akt, and the introduction of PI3K effectively rescued this phenotype. These results suggested that SerT plays a role in the healthy eye development of D. melanogaster by controlling cell death through the regulation of the PI3K/Akt pathway.

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Big Lessons from Tiny Flies: Drosophila Melanogaster as a Model to Explore Dysfunction of Dopaminergic and Serotonergic Neurotransmitter Systems

10.20944/preprints201805.0310.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Ameya Kasture ◽

Thomas Hummel ◽

Sonja Sucic ◽

Michael Freissmuth

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Cell Fate ◽

Genetic Manipulation ◽

Therapeutic Strategies ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Neuronal Connectivity ◽

Genetic Tool ◽

Human Orthologs ◽

The Brain

The brain of Drosophila melanogaster is comprised of some 100,00 neurons, 127 and 80 of which are dopaminergic and serotonergic, respectively. Their activity regulates behavioral functions equivalent to those in mammals, e.g. motor activity, reward and aversion, memory formation, feeding, sexual appetite etc. Mammalian dopaminergic and serotonergic neurons are known to be heterogeneous. They differ in their projections and in their gene expression profile. A sophisticated genetic tool box is available, which allows for targeting virtually any gene with amazing precision in Drosophila melanogaster. Similarly, Drosophila genes can be replaced by their human orthologs including disease-associated alleles. Finally, genetic manipulation can be restricted to single fly neurons. This has allowed for addressing the role of individual neurons in circuits, which determine attraction and aversion, sleep and arousal, odor preference etc. Flies harboring mutated human orthologs provide models, which can be interrogated to understand the effect of the mutant protein on cell fate and neuronal connectivity. These models are also useful for proof-of-concept studies to examine the corrective action of therapeutic strategies. Finally, experiments in Drosophila can be readily scaled up to an extent, which allows for drug screening with reasonably high throughput.

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