Odors elicit complex patterns of activated olfactory sensory neurons. Knowing the complete olfactome, i.e. the responses in all sensory neurons for all relevant odorants, is desirable to understand olfactory coding. The DoOR project combines all available Drosophila odorant response data into a single consensus response matrix. Since its first release many studies were published: receptors were deorphanized and several response profiles were expanded. In this study, we add unpublished data to the odor-response profiles for four odorant receptors (Or10a, Or42b, Or47b, Or56a). We deorphanize Or69a, showing a broad response spectrum with the best ligands including 3-hydroxyhexanoate, alpha-terpineol, 3-octanol and linalool. We include all of these datasets into DoOR, provide a comprehensive update of both code and data, and new tools for data analyses and visualizations. The DoOR project has a web interface for quick queries (http://neuro.uni.kn/DoOR), and a downloadable, open source toolbox written in R, including all processed and original datasets. DoOR now gives reliable odorant-responses for nearly all Drosophila olfactory responding units, listing 693 odorants, for a total of 7381 data points.
Through analysis of the Drosophila ionotropic receptors (IRs), a family of variant ionotropic glutamate receptors, we reveal that most IRs are expressed in peripheral neuron populations in diverse gustatory organs in larvae and adults. We characterise IR56d, which defines two anatomically-distinct neuron classes in the proboscis: one responds to carbonated solutions and fatty acids while the other represents a subset of sugar- and fatty acid-sensing cells. Mutational analysis indicates that IR56d, together with the broadly-expressed co-receptors IR25a and IR76b, is essential for physiological responses to carbonation and fatty acids, but not sugars. We further demonstrate that carbonation and fatty acids both promote IR56d-dependent attraction of flies, but through different behavioural outputs. Our work provides a toolkit for investigating taste functions of IRs, defines a subset of these receptors required for carbonation sensing, and illustrates how the gustatory system uses combinatorial expression of sensory molecules in distinct neurons to coordinate behaviour.
Background: Vitellogenin is a central regulator of honey bee life span by largely unknown mechanisms. Results: Honey bee vitellogenin has membrane affinity that is connected to cell damage recognition and antioxidant function. Conclusion: Membrane binding documents a new molecular behavior among vitellogenins. Significance: Vitellogenins are widespread phylogenetically, and their molecular behavior is essential for fitness traits in many animals.
Summary 1.Commonly held views assume that ageing, or senescence, represents an inevitable, passive, and random decline in function that is strongly linked to chronological age. In recent years, genetic intervention of life span regulating pathways, for example, in Drosophila as well as case studies in non-classical animal models, have provided compelling evidence to challenge these views. 2. Rather than comprehensively revisiting studies on the established genetic model systems of ageing, we here focus on an alternative model organism with a wild type (unselected genotype) characterized by a unique diversity in longevity -the honey bee. 3. Honey bee ( Apis mellifera) life span varies from a few weeks to more than 2 years. This plasticity is largely controlled by environmental factors. Thereby, although individuals are closely related genetically, distinct life histories can emerge as a function of social environmental change. 4. Another remarkable feature of the honey bee is the occurrence of reverted behavioural ontogeny in the worker (female helper) caste. This behavioural peculiarity is associated with alterations in somatic maintenance functions that are indicative of reverted senescence. Thus, although intraspecific variation in organismal life span is not uncommon, the honey bee holds great promise for gaining insights into regulatory pathways that can shape the time-course of ageing by delaying, halting or even reversing processes of senescence. These aspects provide the setting of our review. 5. We will highlight comparative findings from Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans in particular, and focus on knowledge spanning from molecular-to behavioural-senescence to elucidate how the honey bee can contribute to novel insights into regulatory mechanisms that underlie plasticity and robustness or irreversibility in ageing.
a b s t r a c tAs in all advanced insect societies, colony-organization in honey bees emerges through a structured division of labor between essentially sterile helpers called workers. Worker bees are sisters that conduct all social tasks except for egg-laying, for example nursing brood and foraging for food. Curiously, aging progresses slowly in workers that engage in nursing and even slower when bees postpone nursing during unfavorable periods. We, therefore, seek to understand how senescence can emerge as a function of social task performance. The alternative utilization of a common yolk precursor protein (vitellogenin) in nursing and somatic maintenance can link behavior and aging plasticity in worker bees. Beneficial effects of vitellogenin may also be mediated by inhibitory action on juvenile hormone and insulin-like signaling.
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