Neuroendocrine control of an innate behavior

VOLONTÉ YANEL ANDREA

virtual

Congreso; Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias SAN, the XXXVI Annual Meeting (SAN2021); 2021

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Trabajo seleccionado para la sección: Young Investigators Talks - SAN 2021Knowing how neural circuits integrate information from multiple sources to generate a response is essential to understand the fundamental principles of animal behavior. During development, flies, as other animals, show drastic changes in their neuromotor behavior program. At the end of the larval period, the long, flexible and transparent cuticle of D. melanogaster larvae is transformed into a short, sclerotized and tanned puparium. This remodeling is achieved by a series of muscular contractions and structural modifications of the cuticle, both of which are not completely understood at the molecular level. It was previously shown that the Dilp8-Lgr3 pathway are part of a neuroendocrine circuit that promote developmental stability by delaying a peak of Ecdyson that commits larvae to initiate metamorphosis. Here, we describe how the Dilp8-Lgr3 pathway acts to promote the progression of the pupariation motor program. During this process, Lgr3 is required in a set of neurons of the CNS, different than those related to developmental stability, to transduce the Dilp8 signaling that is triggered as a response to Ecdysone in the cuticle epidermis. Our work suggests that Dilp8-Lgr3 constitute a new neuroendocrine pathway directly contributing to puparium morphogenesis; and serves as a model for understanding neuro-hormonal circuits that control complex behaviors.