Division of Neurogenetics, Tohoku University Graduate School of Life Sciences, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
Nat Commun. 2013;4:1825. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2837.
Female Drosophila with the spinster mutation repel courting males and rarely mate. Here we show that the non-copulating phenotype can be recapitulated by the elimination of spinster functions from either spin-A or spin-D neuronal clusters, in the otherwise wild-type (spinster heterozygous) female brain. Spin-D corresponds to the olfactory projection neurons with dendrites in the antennal lobe VA1v glomerulus that is fruitless-positive, sexually dimorphic and responsive to fly odour. Spin-A is a novel local neuron cluster in the suboesophageal ganglion, which is known to process contact chemical pheromone information and copulation-related signals. A slight reduction in spinster expression to a level with a minimal effect is sufficient to shut off female sexual receptivity if the dominant-negative mechanistic target of rapamycin is simultaneously expressed, although the latter manipulation alone has only a marginal effect. We propose that spin-mediated mechanistic target of rapamycin signal transduction in these neurons is essential for females to accept the courting male.
带有 spinster 突变的雌性果蝇会排斥求偶的雄性，很少交配。在这里，我们表明，在其他方面为野生型（spinster 杂合子）雌性大脑中，通过消除 spin-A 或 spin-D 神经元簇中的 spinster 功能，可以重现不交配的表型。Spin-D 对应于具有触角叶 VA1v 神经节树突的嗅觉投射神经元，其对果蝇气味呈 fruity-阳性、性二态性和反应性。Spin-A 是位于食管下神经节中的一个新的局部神经元簇，已知其处理接触化学信息素和与交配相关的信号。如果同时表达显性负性 rapamycin 的作用靶点，那么 spinster 表达的轻微减少到最低效应水平足以关闭雌性的性接受能力，尽管后者的单独操作只有微小的影响。我们提出，这些神经元中的 spin 介导的 rapamycin 的作用靶点信号转导对于雌性接受求偶雄性是必不可少的。
