Desat expression in neural and non-neural tissues separately affects perception and emission of sex pheromones in Drosophila

The desaturase1 gene affects reproduction before, during and after copulation in Drosophila melanogaster

Desaturase1 (desat1) is one of the few genes known to be involved in the two complementary aspects of sensory communication — signal emission and signal reception — in Drosophila melanogaster. In p...

desat1 and the Evolution of Pheromonal Communication in Drosophila

1749-6632 (Electronic) 0077-8923; The evolution of communication is a fundamental biological problem. The genetic control of the signal and its reception must be tightly coadapted, especially in interindividual sexual communication. However, there is very little experimental evidence for tight genetic linkage connecting the emission of a signal and its reception. In Drosophila melanogaster, desat1 is the first known gene that simultaneously affects the emission and the perception of sex pheromones. Our experiments show that both aspects of pheromonal communication (the emission and the perception of sex pheromones) depend on distinct genetic control and may result from tissue-specific expre…

Dietary rescue of altered metabolism gene reveals unexpected [i]Drosophila[/i] mating cues

Running title: Dietary rescue of metabolic mutation and reproduction; To develop and reproduce, animals need long-chain Mono and PolyUnsaturated Fatty Acids (MUFAs; PUFAs). Although some UFAs can be synthesized by the organism, others must be provided by the diet. The gene desat1, involved in Drosophila melanogaster UFA metabolism, is necessary for both larval development and for adult sex pheromone communication. We first characterized desat1 expression in larval tissues. Then, we found that larvae in which desat1 expression was knocked down throughout development died during the larval stages when raised on standard food. By contrast pure MUFAs or PUFAs, but not saturated FAs, added to th…

The consequences of regulation of desat1 expression for pheromone emission and detection in Drosophila melanogaster.

AbstractSensory communication depends on the precise matching between the emission and the perception of sex- and species-specific signals; understanding both the coevolutionary process and the genes involved in both production and detection is a major challenge. desat1 determines both aspects of communication—a mutation in desat1 simultaneously alters both sex pheromone emission and perception in Drosophila melanogaster flies. We investigated whether the alteration of pheromonal perception is a consequence of the altered production of pheromones or if the two phenotypes are independently controlled by the same locus. Using several genetic tools, we were able to separately manipulate the tw…

desat1: A Swiss army knife for pheromonal communication and reproduction?

International audience; The desat1 gene possesses an extraordinary-maybe unique-feature in the control of sensory communication systems: it codes for the two principal and complementary aspects-the emission and the reception-of Drosophila sex pheromones. These two complex aspects depend on separate genetic control indicating that desat1 pleiotropically acts on pheromonal communication. This gene also control other characters either related to reproduction and to osmoregulation. Such a functional pleiotropy may be related to the molecular structure of desat1 gene which combines a highly conserved coding region with fast evolving regulatory regions: It produces at least five transcripts all g…

Cloning and characterization of new orphan nuclear receptors and their developmental profiles duringTenebriometamorphosis

Five PCR fragments corresponding to a part of the DNA-binding domain of different hormone nuclear receptors were isolated from Tenebrio molitor mRNAs. The sequence identity of three of them with known Drosophila nuclear receptors strongly suggests that they are the Tenebrio orthologs of seven-up, DHR3 and β-FTZ-F1, and thus named Tmsvp, TmHR3 and TmFTZ-F1. The full-length sequences of the other two were established. TmHR78 is either a new receptor of the DHR78 family or the same gene which has evolved rapidly, particularly in the E domain. TmGRF belongs to the GCNF1 family and its in vitro translated product binds to the extended half site TCAAGGTCA with high affinity. The periods of expres…

A Mutation With Major Effects on Drosophila melanogaster Sex Pheromones

0016-6731 (Print) Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Sex pheromones are intraspecific chemical signals that are crucial for mate attraction and discrimination. In Drosophila melanogaster, the predominant hydrocarbons on the cuticle of mature female and male flies are radically different and tend to stimulate or inhibit male courtship, respectively. This sexual difference depends largely upon the number of double bonds (one in males and two in females) added by desaturase enzymes. A mutation was caused by a PGal4 transposon inserted in the desat1 gene that codes for the desaturase crucial for setting these double bonds. Homozygous mutant flies produced 70-90%…

Collisional mechanism of ligand release by Bombyx mori JHBP, a member of the TULIP / Takeout family of lipid transporters.

International audience; Juvenile hormones (JHs) regulate important processes in insects, such as postembryonic development and reproduction. In the hemolymph of Lepidoptera, these lipophilic sesquiterpenic hormones are transported from their site of synthesis to target tissues by high affinity carriers, the juvenile hormone binding proteins (JHBPs). Lepidopteran JHBPs belong to a recently uncovered, yet very ancient family of proteins sharing a common lipid fold (TULIP domain) and involved in shuttling various lipid ligands. One important, but poorly understood aspect of JHs action, is the mechanism of hormone transfer to or through the plasma membranes of target cells. Since many membrane-…

The desaturase1 gene affects reproduction before, during and after copulation in Drosophila melanogaster

Desaturase1 (desat1) is one of the few genes known to be involved in the two complementary aspects of sensory communication — signal emission and signal reception — in Drosophila melanogaster. In particular, desat1 is necessary for the biosynthesis of major cuticular pheromones in both males and females. It is also involved in the male ability to discriminate sex pheromones. Each of these two sensory communication aspects depends on distinct desat1 putative regulatory regions. Here, we used (i) mutant alleles resulting from the insertion/excision of a transposable genomic element inserted in a desat1 regulatory region, and (ii) transgenics made with desat1 regulatory regions used to target …