Mating alters gene expression patterns in Drosophila melanogaster male heads

Abstract

BackgroundBehavior is a complex process resulting from the integration of genetic and environmental information. Drosophila melanogaster rely on multiple sensory modalities for reproductive success, and mating causes physiological changes in both sexes that affect reproductive output or behavior. Some of these effects are likely mediated by changes in gene expression. Courtship and mating alter female transcript profiles, but it is not known how mating affects male gene expression.ResultsWe used Drosophila genome arrays to identify changes in gene expression profiles that occur in mated male heads. Forty-seven genes differed between mated and control heads 2 hrs post mating. Many mating-responsive genes are highly expressed in non-neural head tissues, including an adipose tissue called the fat body. One fat body-enriched gene, female-specific independent of transformer (fit), is a downstream target of the somatic sex-determination hierarchy, a genetic pathway that regulates Drosophila reproductive behaviors as well as expression of some fat-expressed genes; three other mating-responsive loci are also downstream components of this pathway. Another mating-responsive gene expressed in fat, Juvenile hormone esterase (Jhe), is necessary for robust male courtship behavior and mating success.ConclusionsOur study demonstrates that mating causes changes in male head gene expression profiles and supports an increasing body of work implicating adipose signaling in behavior modulation. Since several mating-induced genes are sex-determination hierarchy target genes, additional mating-responsive loci may be downstream components of this pathway as well.

The genomic response to courtship song stimulation in femaleDrosophila melanogaster

“…Drs also shows sex-biased fat body-specific expression [49]. Fat body in the head is involved in expression of many genes that mediate sexual differentiation [50], as well as male responses to mating [51]. Immunity genes are differentially expressed in females when mating [8,10,43,52,53] and nearly all the immunity genes identified in our study are upregulated in mated females [10].…”

Polyandry and sex-specific gene expression

“…Mating itself causes further gene expression changes in both male and female brains [35][36][37]. In all cases, these transcriptomic changes are subtle, and transcriptomic studies in a range of species suggest sex differences in the brain are relatively modest [13,38 -40].…”

Dietary choices are influenced by genotype, mating status, and sex in Drosophila melanogaster

“…Less is known about the responses to mating in males, although they are predicted to primarily involve the replenishment of sperm and seminal fluid storage (Sirot, Buehner, Fiumera, & Wolfner, 2009). Several studies using Drosophila melanogaster have aimed to uncover the gene products that respond to mating, although these studies have examined males and females separately (Dalton et al., 2010; Ellis & Carney, 2010; Innocenti & Morrow, 2009; Lawniczak & Begun, 2004). …”