Mating masks the daily function of the clock

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

Congreso; Society for Research on Biological Rhythms SRBR 2020 Virtual Meeting; 2020

Rest-activitycycles are common to both males and females of Drosophilamelanogaster.However, there are some important sex differences related to thetiming of the resting period during daylight hours. Untilvery recently,the majority of circadian studies havefocusedon males, probably becauseof the lower complexity of their behavior.Asaconsequence, the temporal organization of female locomotor activityhas received much less attention. Interestingly,after mating the female physiology undergoes several importantchanges, which are reflected in their rest-activity cycles.To explore the hypothesis that the signalinggated by matingcould alter the normalfunction of circadian clockand modify the temporal organization of the behavior,we performed a high resolutionanalysis of the locomotoractivity using a video tracking method.Bycomparing the rest-activity cycles on virgin and mated females aswell as on males, weobserved that, incontrast to males and virgins, mated femaleslose theirability to anticipate the night-day transition when motoractivity is analyzed in light:darkcycles. Ourresultsshow that this postmating response is mediated by the action of thesex peptide (SP)on pickpocket(PPK)neurons, sincethedecreased expressionof theSPreceptor (SPR)intheseneurons restores the ability to anticipate thelight/dark transitionin mated females.Toanalyze the postsynaptic target of PPK-SPR+ sensory neurons we usedthe anterogradetrans-synaptic tracing tool trans-Tango. Ourpreliminary data show thesmall lateral ventral neurons as new postsynaptictargets ofPPK-SPR+sensory neurons in mated femalesbutnot in males.Ourresults are consistent with a model whereby mating-triggeredsignaling isdelivery into the clock network tomodulate changes inthetemporalorganization of thebehavior.