Plasticity in the circadian circuit mediated by the reproductive state in females of Drosophila melanogaster

D. LORENA FRANCO; SABRINA RIVA; SOFIA POLCOWÑUK; LIHUEN SORIA-MERCIER; FERNADA CERIANI; SEBASTIAN RISAU GUSMAN

Conferencia; 62nd Annual Drosophila Research Conference; 2021

Rest-activitycycles are common to both males and females of Drosophilamelanogaster. However, there are some important sex differencesrelated to the timing of the resting period during daylight hours.Until very recently, the majority of the circadian studies focused onmales, probably because of the lower complexity of their behavior. Asa consequence, the temporal organization of female locomotor activityhas received much less attention. After mating, female physiologyundergoes several important changes, which are reflected in theiractivity patterns. To explore the hypothesis that mating could altercircadian clock function and thus modify the temporal organization ofthe behavior, we performed a high resolution analysis of thelocomotor activity using a custom-made video tracking method. Bycomparing the rest-activity patterns on virgin and mated females aswell as on males, we observed that, in contrast to males and virgins,mated females loose their ability to anticipate the night-daytransition when locomotor activity is analyzed under light:darkconditions. Our results show that this postmating response ismediated by the action of the sex peptide on ppk neurons, sincesilencing the SP receptor in these neurons restores the ability toanticipate the light/dark transition in mated females. Using theanterograde trans-synaptic tracing tool trans-Tango we identified thesmall lateral ventral neurons as new postsynaptic targets of ppk+ SPsensory neurons in mated females. Our results are consistent with amodel whereby mating-triggered signaling is delivered onto the clocknetwork to modulate changes in the temporal organization of femalebehavior.