scholarly journals Molecular and cellular basis of acid taste sensation in Drosophila

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingwei Mi ◽  
John O. Mack ◽  
Christopher M. Lee ◽  
Yali V. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Model Organism ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Taste Perception ◽  
Proton Channel ◽  
Taste Sensation ◽  
Sensory Pathways ◽  
High Acidity ◽  
Aversive Taste ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved ◽  
Receptor Neurons

AbstractAcid taste, evoked mainly by protons (H+), is a core taste modality for many organisms. The hedonic valence of acid taste is bidirectional: animals prefer slightly but avoid highly acidic foods. However, how animals discriminate low from high acidity remains poorly understood. To explore the taste perception of acid, we use the fruit fly as a model organism. We find that flies employ two competing taste sensory pathways to detect low and high acidity, and the relative degree of activation of each determines either attractive or aversive responses. Moreover, we establish one member of the fly Otopetrin family, Otopetrin-like a (OtopLa), as a proton channel dedicated to the gustatory detection of acid. OtopLa defines a unique subset of gustatory receptor neurons and is selectively required for attractive rather than aversive taste responses. Loss of otopla causes flies to reject normally attractive low-acid foods. Therefore, the identification of OtopLa as a low-acid sensor firmly supports our competition model of acid taste sensation. Altogether, we have discovered a binary acid-sensing mechanism that may be evolutionarily conserved between insects and mammals.

scholarly journals Quantitative investigation reveals distinct phases in Drosophila sleep

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaochan Xu ◽  
Wei Yang ◽  
Binghui Tian ◽  
Xiuwen Sui ◽  
Weilai Chi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drosophila Melanogaster ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Infrared Camera ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Genetic Dissection ◽  
Power Law Distribution ◽  
Quantitative Investigation ◽  
Waking Up ◽  
Set Up

AbstractThe fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has been used as a model organism for the molecular and genetic dissection of sleeping behaviors. However, most previous studies were based on qualitative or semi-quantitative characterizations. Here we quantified sleep in flies. We set up an assay to continuously track the activity of flies using infrared camera, which monitored the movement of tens of flies simultaneously with high spatial and temporal resolution. We obtained accurate statistics regarding the rest and sleep patterns of single flies. Analysis of our data has revealed a general pattern of rest and sleep: the rest statistics obeyed a power law distribution and the sleep statistics obeyed an exponential distribution. Thus, a resting fly would start to move again with a probability that decreased with the time it has rested, whereas a sleeping fly would wake up with a probability independent of how long it had slept. Resting transits to sleeping at time scales of minutes. Our method allows quantitative investigations of resting and sleeping behaviors and our results provide insights for mechanisms of falling into and waking up from sleep.

Using Multilayer Perceptron Computation to Discover Ideal Insect Olfactory Receptor Combinations in the Mosquito and Fruit Fly for an Efficient Electronic Nose

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luqman R. Bachtiar ◽  
Charles P. Unsworth ◽  
Richard D. Newcomb
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Nose ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Olfactory Receptors ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Classification Performance ◽  
Performance Comparison ◽  
Odorant Receptors ◽  
Multilayer Perceptrons ◽  
Full Complement ◽  
Mosquito Anopheles Gambiae

The model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, and the mosquito Anopheles gambiae use 60 and 79 odorant receptors, respectively, to sense their olfactory world. However, a commercial “electronic nose” in the form of an insect olfactory biosensor demands very low numbers of receptors at its front end of detection due to the difficulties of receptor/sensor integration and functionalization. In this letter, we demonstrate how computation via artificial neural networks (ANNs), in the form of multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), can be successfully incorporated as the signal processing back end of the biosensor to drastically reduce the number of receptors to three while still retaining 100% performance of odorant detection to that of a full complement of receptors. In addition, we provide a detailed performance comparison between D. melanogaster and A. gambiae odorant receptors and demonstrate that A. gambiae receptors provide superior olfaction detection performance over D. melanogaster for very low receptor numbers. The results from this study present the possibility of using the computation of MLPs to discover ideal biological olfactory receptors for an olfactory biosensor device to provide maximum classification performance of unknown odorants.

scholarly journals An Evolutionarily Conserved Pathway Essential for Orsay Virus Infection of Caenorhabditis elegans

mBio ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongbing Jiang ◽  
Kevin Chen ◽  
Luis E. Sandoval ◽  
Christian Leung ◽  
David Wang
Keyword(s):  
Caenorhabditis Elegans ◽  
Virus Infection ◽  
Tyrosine Kinase ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Wiskott Aldrich Syndrome ◽  
C Elegans ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved ◽  
Conserved Genes ◽  
Orsay Virus ◽  
Syndrome Protein

ABSTRACT Many fundamental biological discoveries have been made in Caenorhabditis elegans. The discovery of Orsay virus has enabled studies of host-virus interactions in this model organism. To identify host factors critical for Orsay virus infection, we designed a forward genetic screen that utilizes a virally induced green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter. Following chemical mutagenesis, two Viro (virus induced reporter off) mutants that failed to express GFP were mapped to sid-3, a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase, and B0280.13 (renamed viro-2), an ortholog of human Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASP). Both mutants yielded Orsay virus RNA levels comparable to that of the residual input virus, suggesting that they are not permissive for Orsay virus replication. In addition, we demonstrated that both genes affect an early prereplication stage of Orsay virus infection. Furthermore, it is known that the human ortholog of SID-3, activated CDC42-associated kinase (ACK1/TNK2), is capable of phosphorylating human WASP, suggesting that VIRO-2 may be a substrate for SID-3 in C. elegans. A targeted RNA interference (RNAi) knockdown screen further identified the C. elegans gene nck-1, which has a human ortholog that interacts with TNK2 and WASP, as required for Orsay virus infection. Thus, genetic screening in C. elegans identified critical roles in virus infection for evolutionarily conserved genes in a known human pathway. IMPORTANCE Orsay virus is the only known virus capable of naturally infecting the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, which shares many evolutionarily conserved genes with humans. We exploited the robust genetic tractability of C. elegans to identify three host genes, sid-3, viro-2, and nck-1, which are essential for Orsay virus infection. Mutant animals that lack these three genes are highly defective in viral replication. Strikingly, the human orthologs of these three genes, activated CDC42-associated kinase (TNK2), Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASP), and noncatalytic region of tyrosine kinase adaptor protein 1 (NCK1) are part of a known signaling pathway in mammals. These results suggest that TNK2, WASP, and NCK1 may play important roles in mammalian virus infection. IMPORTANCE Orsay virus is the only known virus capable of naturally infecting the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, which shares many evolutionarily conserved genes with humans. We exploited the robust genetic tractability of C. elegans to identify three host genes, sid-3, viro-2, and nck-1, which are essential for Orsay virus infection. Mutant animals that lack these three genes are highly defective in viral replication. Strikingly, the human orthologs of these three genes, activated CDC42-associated kinase (TNK2), Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASP), and noncatalytic region of tyrosine kinase adaptor protein 1 (NCK1) are part of a known signaling pathway in mammals. These results suggest that TNK2, WASP, and NCK1 may play important roles in mammalian virus infection.

scholarly journals A reference translatome map reveals two modes of protein evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Wacholder ◽  
Omer Acar ◽  
Anne-Ruxandra Carvunis
Keyword(s):  
Model Organism ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Ribosome Profiling ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
Protein Coding ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Protein Coding Genes ◽  
Representative Subset ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved

Ribosome profiling experiments demonstrate widespread translation of eukaryotic genomes outside of annotated protein-coding genes. However, it is unclear how much of this "noncanonical" translation contributes biologically relevant microproteins rather than insignificant translational noise. Here, we developed an integrative computational framework (iRibo) that leverages hundreds of ribosome profiling experiments to detect signatures of translation with high sensitivity and specificity. We deployed iRibo to construct a reference translatome in the model organism S. cerevisiae. We identified ~19,000 noncanonical translated elements outside of the ~5,400 canonical yeast protein-coding genes. Most (65%) of these non-canonical translated elements were located on transcripts annotated as non-coding, or entirely unannotated, while the remainder were located on the 5' and 3' ends of mRNA transcripts. Only 14 non-canonical translated elements were evolutionarily conserved. In stark contrast with canonical protein-coding genes, the great majority of the yeast noncanonical translatome appeared evolutionarily transient and showed no signatures of selection. Yet, we uncovered phenotypes for 53% of a representative subset of evolutionarily transient translated elements. The iRibo framework and reference translatome described here provide a foundation for further investigation of a largely unexplored, but biologically significant, evolutionarily transient translatome.

scholarly journals Characterization of the genome of the mealybug Planococcus lilacinus, a model organism for studying whole-chromosome imprinting and inactivation

2002 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. NAGA MOHAN ◽  
PARAMITA RAY ◽  
H. SHARAT CHANDRA
Keyword(s):  
Drosophila Melanogaster ◽  
Repetitive Sequences ◽  
Gc Content ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Single Copy ◽  
Coding Sequences ◽  
Repeat Sequences ◽  
Chromosome Imprinting

The co-occurrence of three chromosome-wide phenomena – imprinting, facultative heterochromatization and diffuse centromere – in the mealybug Planococcus lilacinus makes investigation of the genomics of this species an attractive prospect. In order to estimate the complexity of the genome of this species, 300 random stretches of its DNA, constituting ∼0·1% of the genome, were sequenced. Coding sequences appear to constitute ∼53·5%, repeat sequences ∼44·5% and non-coding single-copy sequences ∼2% of the genome. The proportion of repetitive sequences in the mealybug is higher than that in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (∼30%). The mealybug genome (∼220 Mb) is about 1·3 times the size of the fly genome (∼165 Mb) and its GC content (∼35%) less than that of the fly genome (∼40%). The relative abundance of various dinucleotides, as analysed by the method of Gentles and Karlin, shows that the dinucleotide signatures of the two species are moderately similar and that in the mealybug there is neither over-representation nor under-representation of any dinucleotide.

scholarly journals The role of FLOWERING LOCUS C in vernalization of Brassica: the importance of vernalization research in the face of climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Shea ◽  
Etsuko Itabashi ◽  
Satoko Takada ◽  
Eigo Fukai ◽  
Tomohiro Kakizaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Climatic Changes ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Agricultural Crops ◽  
Regulatory Pathways ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved ◽  
The Face

As climatic changes occur over the coming decades, our scientific understanding of plant responses to environmental cues will become an increasingly important consideration in the breeding of agricultural crops. This review provides a summary of the literature regarding vernalization research in Brassicaceae, covering both the historical origins of vernalization research and current understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind the regulatory pathways involved in vernalization and subsequent inflorescence. We discuss the evolutionarily conserved biology between the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana and the Brassica genus of crop cultivars and contrast the differences between the genera to illustrate the importance of Brassica-specific research into vernalization.

scholarly journals The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans A Model Animal “Made for Microscopy”

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
David H. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Caenorhabditis Elegans ◽  
System Development ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Small Animal ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Nervous System Development ◽  
Model Animal

The small unassuming nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans is only one millimeter long and lives in the soil munching on bacteria. While many nematode (roundworm) species are parasites with medical or agricultural importance, C. elegans seems to harm no one. Yet, this animal has attained a status in medical science that compares to more complex organisms such as the mouse or fruit fly in its utility for scientific discovery. It has been the subject of thousands of studies dealing with topics as diverse as nutrition, aging, and nervous system development. About 5000 scientists are now pursuing this single species in hundreds of laboratories worldwide. In 2002, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three of the pioneers in establishing C. elegans as a “model organism“: Sydney Brenner, John Sulston, and H. Robert Horvitz. Why study worms?Sydney Brenner first turned his attention to C. elegans in the 1960's. Working at the Medical Research Council in England, he was looking for a small animal with inexpensive tastes that could be easily cultured in the laboratory.

scholarly journals An unbiased template of the Drosophila brain and ventral nerve cord

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0236495
Author(s):  
John A. Bogovic ◽  
Hideo Otsuna ◽  
Larissa Heinrich ◽  
Masayoshi Ito ◽  
Jennifer Jeter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nerve Cord ◽  
Ventral Nerve Cord ◽  
Model Organism ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Tissue Preparation ◽  
Best Available Technologies ◽  
Common Reference ◽  
Biological Studies ◽  
Reference Space ◽  
Central Brain

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is an important model organism for neuroscience with a wide array of genetic tools that enable the mapping of individual neurons and neural subtypes. Brain templates are essential for comparative biological studies because they enable analyzing many individuals in a common reference space. Several central brain templates exist for Drosophila, but every one is either biased, uses sub-optimal tissue preparation, is imaged at low resolution, or does not account for artifacts. No publicly available Drosophila ventral nerve cord template currently exists. In this work, we created high-resolution templates of the Drosophila brain and ventral nerve cord using the best-available technologies for imaging, artifact correction, stitching, and template construction using groupwise registration. We evaluated our central brain template against the four most competitive, publicly available brain templates and demonstrate that ours enables more accurate registration with fewer local deformations in shorter time.

scholarly journals Impact of Fungiform Papillae Count on Taste Perception and Different Methods of Taste Assessment and their Clinical Applications: A comprehensive review

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asim M. Khan ◽  
Saqib Ali ◽  
Reshma V. Jameela ◽  
Muhaseena Muhamood ◽  
Maryam F. Haqh
Keyword(s):  
Relative Sensitivity ◽  
Clinical Applications ◽  
Taste Buds ◽  
Taste Perception ◽  
Taste Sensation ◽  
Fungiform Papillae ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Investigative Techniques ◽  
Electrical Methods ◽  
Taste Assessment

Fungiform papillae are raised lingual structures which contain taste buds and thus play an important role in taste perception. These structures vary in number due to their relative sensitivity to a range of systemic and local factors which affect the dorsum of the tongue. Taste sensation can be measured using both chemical and electrical methods; however, the number of fungiform papillae has a direct effect on chemogustometric and electrogustometric values during evaluation. This review provides a general overview of fungiform papillae, their quantification methods and the various factors which may affect these structures. In addition, numerous methods of recording taste sensation and their clinical applications are highlighted.Keywords: Sensation; Taste; Taste Perception; Tongue; Taste Buds; Investigative Techniques.

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