Molecular basis of fatty acid taste in Drosophila. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Behavioral studies have established that Drosophila appetitive taste responses towards fatty acids are mediated by sweet sensing Gustatory Receptor Neurons (GRNs). Here we show that sweet GRN activation requires the function of the Ionotropic Receptor genes IR25a, IR76b and IR56d. The former two IR genes are expressed in several neurons per sensillum, while IR56d expression is restricted to sweet GRNs. Importantly, loss of appetitive behavioral responses to fatty acids in IR25a and IR76b mutant flies can be completely rescued by expression of respective transgenes in sweet GRNs. Interestingly, appetitive behavioral responses of wild type flies to hexanoic acid reach a plateau at ~1%, but decrease with higher concentration, a property mediated through IR25a/IR76b independent activation of bitter GRNs. With our previous report on sour taste, our studies suggest that IR-based receptors mediate different taste qualities through cell-type specific IR subunits.

published proceedings

  • Elife

altmetric score

  • 2

author list (cited authors)

  • Ahn, J., Chen, Y., & Amrein, H.

citation count

  • 91

complete list of authors

  • Ahn, Ji-Eun||Chen, Yan||Amrein, Hubert

publication date

  • December 2017

publisher

published in