Taste Sensation inDrosophila melanoganster

Abstract

Animals find nutritious foods to survive, while avoiding aversive and toxic chemicals through the chemosensory faculties of olfaction and taste. The olfaction is comparatively well characterized, but the studies of taste are only recently developing since after 2000. Genetic, immunohistochemistry, and electrophysiological studies with knock-out transgenic mice opened up the taste field in mammals. Taste in insects has been only recently been studied after mammalian taste receptors were identified. Flies also discriminate the differences of sweet, salty and sour food, while being able to detect and reject potential foods contaminated with toxins or detrimental chemicals. These discriminatory abilities indicate that flies house basic taste receptors in their taste organs like humans. For the last decade, the sweet and bitter gustatory receptors in Drosophila have been characterized. In this review, we compare the taste anatomy between humans and insects. We also introduce five canonical taste sensations in Drosophila. In addition, we introduce new taste repertoires, that fruit flies can sense water and fatty acids as well as the carbonation buffer in beverage. These studies on simple model organisms will open up a new potential for scientists to further investigate these characteristics in vertebrates.

Fat storage in Drosophila suzukii is influenced by different dietary sugars in relation to their palatability

“…Instead, other studies suggest that taste sensitivity plays an important role in determining appropriate physiological and behavioural responses to nutritional value, particularly when flies live in environments where they encounter food sources with low nutritional contents [ 22 ]. In agreement with other reports, we found that flies fed on diets containing metabolizable sugars (maltose and glucose) live longer than those fed on diets with non-metabolizable sugars (sucralose) [ 57 , 59 , 62 ]. We found a positive relationship between the nutritional value of sugars and the responsiveness of sweet-sensitive GRN, with the disaccharide maltose being more capable to increase survival than the modified disaccharide sucralose, thus suggesting that maltose, as opposite to sucralose, is promptly hydrolysed to glucose which is the preferential substrate for DNL [ 63 ].…”

“…As a matter of fact, data from several laboratories on D . melanogaster show that: glucose and arabinose evoke both spike frequencies and levels of PER of similar strength [ 25 ]; the flies respond most robustly to disaccharides such as sucrose and maltose, while fructose and arabinose elicit intermediate levels of PER [ 48 , 57 , 59 , 60 ].…”

Nano-architecture of gustatory chemosensory bristles and trachea in Drosophila wings

“…In mammals, the common paradigm is that volatile/ hydrophobic molecules activate olfactory receptors and hydrophilic molecules activate gustatory receptors. In fact, the boundaries between these two sensory modalities based on the physic-chemistry of stimuli do not apply in insects 47 . In insects, taste cells detect CO 2 (in carbonate form) 48 , water (through osmosensitive ion channels) 49 , and pheromones 47 .…”

“…In fact, the boundaries between these two sensory modalities based on the physic-chemistry of stimuli do not apply in insects 47 . In insects, taste cells detect CO 2 (in carbonate form) 48 , water (through osmosensitive ion channels) 49 , and pheromones 47 . The carboxylic acids such as acetic, propionic and citric acids amplify the bitter detection and inhibit the sweet perception 50 .…”

The pleiotropic effects of Innexin genes expressed in Drosophila glia encompass wing chemosensory sensilla

“…Currently, nothing is known regarding the cell‐to‐cell communication in Drosophila chemosensilla and the hypothetical role of paracrine and/or autocrine factors (ATP, neuropeptides, biogenic amines such as tyramine and serotonin), which, by contrast, have been well documented in mammalian taste organs (Finger et al, ; Herness & Zhao, ; Jaber, Zhao, Kolli, & Herness, ; Taruno, Matsumoto, Ma, Marambaud, & Foskett, ). Trichogen and tormogen cells have been reported to pump high concentrations of potassium into the lymph cavity of the sensory hair, which generates a transepithelial voltage that accounts for the sensitivity of stimuli to generate an action potential (Lee & Poudel, ; Liman, Zhang, & Montell, ; Pollack & Balakrishnan, ). A yet unexplored field is the role of the glial cell in mature sensilla in Drosophila and in diverse insect orders in general, along with the functional dialog between the trichogen, tormogen, thecogen, and sensory neurons.…”