Circadian clocks attune the physiology of virtually all living organisms to the diurnal cycles of their environments. In metazoan animals, multiple sensory input pathways have been linked to clock synchronization with the environmental cycle (entrainment). Extrinsic entrainment cues include light and temperature. We show that (12-hour:12-hour) cycles of vibration and silence (VS) are sufficient to synchronize the daily locomotor activity of wild-type Drosophila melanogaster. Behavioral synchronization to VS cycles required a functional clock and functional chordotonal organs and was accompanied by phase-shifts of the daily oscillations of PERIOD protein concentrations in brain clock neurons. The feedback from mechanosensory-and particularly, proprioceptive-organs may help an animal to keep its circadian clock in sync with its own, stimulus-induced activities.
Cilia were present in the earliest eukaryotic ancestor and underlie many biological processes ranging from cell motility and propulsion of extracellular fluids to sensory physiology. We investigated the contribution of the touch insensitive larva B (tilB) gene to cilia function in Drosophila melanogaster. Mutants of tilB exhibit dysfunction in sperm flagella and ciliated dendrites of chordotonal organs that mediate hearing and larval touch sensitivity. Mutant sperm axonemes as well as sensory neuron dendrites of Johnston's organ, the fly's auditory organ, lack dynein arms. Through deficiency mapping and sequencing candidate genes, we identified tilB mutations in the annotated gene CG14620. A genomic CG14620 transgene rescued deafness and male sterility of tilB mutants. TilB is a 395-amino-acid protein with a conserved N-terminal leucine-rich repeat region at residues 16-164 and a coiled-coil domain at residues 171-191. A tilB-Gal4 transgene driving fluorescently tagged TilB proteins elicits cytoplasmic expression in embryonic chordotonal organs, in Johnston's organ, and in sperm flagella. TilB does not appear to affect tubulin polyglutamylation or polyglycylation. The phenotypes and expression of tilB indicate function in cilia construction or maintenance, but not in intraflagellar transport. This is also consistent with phylogenetic association of tilB homologs with presence of genes encoding axonemal dynein arm components. Further elucidation of tilB functional mechanisms will provide greater understanding of cilia function and will facilitate understanding ciliary diseases.
Can you identify some challenges for the scientific community? I greatly enjoy engaging with like-minded puzzle solvers with different training and knowledge, such as physicists, engineers, and computer scientists. The collaboration enables us all to think differently and to discover and solve intriguing problems. This is one of the many benefits of interdisciplinary work, but there are challenges, too. One is that each domain has its own lexicon that practitioners use reflexively and unconsciously. For example, if you say 'substrate' to a biologist, you invoke the idea of enzymes acting on molecular substrates. But the same word spoken to a material scientist or engineer invokes an entirely different idea of a semiconductor substrate from which a device can be made. Often, the main signal we have for potentially comical episodes of mis-communication is the expression of deep confusion on your collaborator's face. But, such non-verbal cues are entirely missing from e-mail and challenging to discern during video conferencing. Yet, in my experience, these cues are especially crucial for productive interdisciplinary work where you and your collaborators are not likely to share the same conceptual models. So, despite the amazing tools that we have for e-communication, oldfashioned in-person meetings remain important.
In mammals, the membrane-based protein Prestin confers unique electromotile properties to cochlear outer hair cells, which contribute to the cochlear amplifier. Like mammals, the ears of insects, such as those of Drosophila melanogaster, mechanically amplify sound stimuli and have also been reported to express Prestin homologs. To determine whether the D. melanogaster Prestin homolog (dpres) is required for auditory amplification, we generated and analyzed dpres mutant flies. We found that dpres is robustly expressed in the fly’s antennal ear. However, dpres mutant flies show normal auditory nerve responses, and intact non-linear amplification. Thus we conclude that, in D. melanogaster, auditory amplification is independent of Prestin. This finding resonates with prior phylogenetic analyses, which suggest that the derived motor function of mammalian Prestin replaced, or amended, an ancestral transport function. Indeed, we show that dpres encodes a functional anion transporter. Interestingly, the acquired new motor function in the phylogenetic lineage leading to birds and mammals coincides with loss of the mechanotransducer channel NompC (=TRPN1), which has been shown to be required for auditory amplification in flies. The advent of Prestin (or loss of NompC, respectively) may thus mark an evolutionary transition from a transducer-based to a Prestin-based mechanism of auditory amplification.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00359-014-0960-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Ethanol is a psychoactive substance causing both short- and long-term behavioural changes in humans and animal models. We have used the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the effect of ethanol exposure on the expression of the Gαq protein subunit. Repetitive exposure to ethanol causes a reduction in sensitivity (tolerance) to ethanol, which we have measured as the time for 50% of a set of flies to become sedated after exposure to ethanol (ST50). We demonstrate that the same treatment that induces an increase in ST50 over consecutive days (tolerance) also causes a decrease in Gαq protein subunit expression at both the messenger RNA and protein level. To identify whether there may be a causal relationship between these two outcomes, we have developed strains of flies in which Gαq messenger RNA expression is suppressed in a time- and tissue-specific manner. In these flies, the sensitivity to ethanol and the development of tolerance are altered. This work further supports the value of Drosophila as a model to dissect the molecular mechanisms of the behavioural response to alcohol and identifies G proteins as potentially important regulatory targets for alcohol use disorders.
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