School of Life Sciences, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, 61005, Republic of Korea.
Nat Commun. 2017 Nov 21;8(1):1630. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01794-9.
Upon mating, fruit fly females become refractory to further mating for several days. An ejaculate protein called sex peptide (SP) acts on uterine neurons to trigger this behavioural change, but it is still unclear how the SP signal modifies the mating decision. Here we describe two groups of female-specific local interneurons that are important for this process-the ventral abdominal lateral (vAL) and ventral abdominal medial (vAM) interneurons. Both vAL and vAM express myoinhibitory peptide (Mip)-GAL4. vAL is positive for Mip neuropeptides and the sex-determining transcriptional factor doublesex. Silencing the Mip neurons in females induces active rejection of male courtship attempts, whereas activation of the Mip neurons makes even mated females receptive to re-mating. vAL and vAM are located in the abdominal ganglion (AG) where they relay the SP signal to other AG neurons that project to the brain. Mip neuropeptides appear to promote mating receptivity both in virgins and mated females, although it is dispensable for normal mating in virgin females.
交配后，果蝇雌虫在数天内对进一步交配产生抗性。一种叫做性肽 (SP) 的射精蛋白作用于子宫神经元，引发这种行为变化，但 SP 信号如何改变交配决策仍不清楚。在这里，我们描述了两组对该过程很重要的雌性特异性局部中间神经元——腹侧腹壁外侧 (vAL) 和腹侧腹壁内侧 (vAM) 中间神经元。vAL 和 vAM 均表达肌抑制肽 (Mip)-GAL4。vAL 对 Mip 神经肽和性别决定转录因子 doublesex 呈阳性。沉默雌性中的 Mip 神经元会诱导其主动拒绝雄性求爱，而激活 Mip 神经元会使即使已交配的雌性也能接受再次交配。vAL 和 vAM 位于腹部神经节 (AG) 中，它们将 SP 信号传递到投射到大脑的其他 AG 神经元。Mip 神经肽似乎既能促进处女蝇的交配接受度，也能促进已交配雌蝇的交配接受度，尽管在处女蝇中它对正常交配不是必需的。
