Or47b -neurons promote male-mating success in Drosophila

Abstract

Drosophila performs elaborate well-defined rituals of courtship, which involve several types of sensory inputs. Here, we report that Or47b-neurons promote male-mating success. Males with Or47b-neurons silenced/ablated exhibit reduced copulation frequency and increased copulation latency. Copulation latency of Or47b-manipulated flies increased proportionately with size of the assay arena, whereas in controls it remained unchanged. While competing for mates, Or47b-ablated males are outperformed by intact controls. These results suggest the role of Or47b-neurons in promoting male-mating success.

Hormonal Modulation of Pheromone Detection Enhances Male Courtship Success

“…We hypothesized that the copulation advantage of older males requires Or47b because the receptor has been shown to detect volatile fly odors (Dweck et al, 2015; van der Goes van Naters and Carlson, 2007; Masuyama et al, 2012). In addition, genetic perturbation of the Or47b neural circuit delays copulation onset (Root et al, 2008) and impairs male courtship behavior (Dweck et al, 2015; Lone et al, 2015). Indeed, when both competing males were Or47b mutants, older males no longer exhibited any copulation advantage (Fig.…”

Olfactory Neurons and Brain Centers Directing Oviposition Decisions in Drosophila

“…Chemosensation is considered one of the most primal senses, as all living organisms (from bacteria to humans) use chemical information to interact with their environments. The olfactory system has the ability to detect volatile odorants that drive integral survival behaviors such as finding nutritious food, identifying an attractive mate, avoiding ingestion of disease-causing microbes and toxins, and influencing oviposition, courtship, aggregation, flight, and aggressive behaviors ( Vosshall, 2007 ; Dweck et al, 2013 ; Wasserman et al, 2013 ; Lone et al, 2015 ). The chemical world contains a large, diverse number of compounds.…”

Sleep and Development in Genetically Tractable Model Organisms

“…This finding, however, resurrects an older question: How are sleep disturbances in early life linked to later behavioral abnormalities? In the fly, courtship deficits in adult flies that were sleep deprived when young are accompanied by abnormal development of a specific olfactory glomerulus, known as VA1v, that plays a pheromone-related role in social behaviors (Dweck et al 2015;Lone et al 2015). Surprisingly, VA1v grows more rapidly during early posteclosion development compared to its neighboring glomeruli (Kayser et al 2014), likely reflecting a higher rate of synapse addition.…”