Mating activates neuroendocrine pathways signaling hunger inDrosophilafemales

Abstract

Mated females reallocate resources to offspring production, causing changes in nutritional requirements and challenges to energy homeostasis. Although observed in most species, the neural and endocrine mechanisms that regulate the nutritional needs of mated females are not well understood. Here, we investigate the neural circuitry that regulates sugar appetite in matedDrosophila melanogasterfemales. During copulation, a male-derived sex peptide is transferred to females, silencing the mating status circuit to elicit many postmating behavioral changes1-3. We find that increased sucrose consumption is a postmated female behavior and show that it is mediated by the mating status circuit. We discovered that sexually dimorphic insulin receptor (Lgr3) neurons integrate mating status and nutritional state signals to adjust sucrose consumption. Lgr3+ cells receive inhibitory input from the mating status circuit via female specific pdC2 neurons. In mated females, the inhibition of Lgr3 cells from pdC2 is attenuated, transforming the mated signal into a long-term hunger signal that promotes sugar intake. Our results thus demonstrate that the mating circuit alters nutrient sensing centers in females to promote sugar consumption, providing a mechanism to increase intake in anticipation of the energetic costs associated with reproduction.

Hunger- and thirst-sensing neurons modulate a neuroendocrine network to coordinate sugar and water ingestion

“…We characterized the pathway from the second-order BiT projection neuron that oppositely regulates sugar and water consumption. We found that BiT has 93 synaptic partners, including IPCs which are known to modulate food intake (Nässel & Zandawala, 2020), FLAa3/Lgr3 which have been implicated in regulating ingestion 22 (Laturney et al, 2022, Meissner et al, 2016, Nässel et al, 2013, Yeom et al, 2021, and neurons labeled by the CCHa2R-RA-Gal4 (Deng et al, 2019) which we found regulate water ingestion. BiT downstream neurons innervate several neuropils including the SEZ, SMP, SLP, fan shaped body, and lobula.…”

Hunger- and thirst-sensing neurons modulate a neuroendocrine network to coordinate sugar and water ingestion

“…We characterized the pathway from the second-order BiT projection neuron that oppositely regulates sugar and water consumption. We found that BiT has 93 predicted synaptic partners, including IPCs which are known to modulate food intake ( Nässel and Zandawala, 2020 ), FLAa3/Lgr3 which have been implicated in regulating ingestion ( Laturney et al, 2022 ; Meissner et al, 2016 ; Nässel et al, 2013 ; Yeom et al, 2021 ), and neurons labeled by the CCHa2R-RA-Gal4 ( Deng et al, 2019 ) which we found to regulate water ingestion. BiT downstream neurons innervate several neuropils including the SEZ, SMP, SLP, FB, and lobula.…”

A searchable image resource of Drosophila GAL4 driver expression patterns with single neuron resolution

“…CDM and PPPM search approaches both find valid EM/LM matches for several tested neurons, supporting their effectiveness and the good coverage of the brain by the Gen1 MCFO collection. NeuronBridge has already seen frequent usage ( Bidaye et al, 2020 ; Morimoto et al, 2020 ; Nojima et al, 2021 ; Sareen et al, 2021 ; Zolin et al, 2021 ; Israel et al, 2022 ; Tanaka and Clark, 2022 ; Laturney et al, 2022 ). Together these tools allow for the rapid determination of likely split-GAL4 lines and other enhancer-based approaches to target most neurons initially found in the FlyEM Hemibrain and eventually in the full Drosophila CNS.…”