IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v446y2007i7135d10.1038_nature05672.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A single class of olfactory neurons mediates behavioural responses to a Drosophila sex pheromone

Author

Listed:
  • Amina Kurtovic

    (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Dr Bohr-gasse 7, A-1030 Vienna, Austria)

  • Alexandre Widmer

    (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Dr Bohr-gasse 7, A-1030 Vienna, Austria)

  • Barry J. Dickson

    (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Dr Bohr-gasse 7, A-1030 Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

Unisex pheromones The volatile pheromone 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) is produced by male Drosophila, and several lines of evidence suggest that it guides mating behaviour via the Or67d receptor in olfactory receptor neurons. Targeted mutation of the Or67d gene confirms that that is the case, but with a twist. cVA acts in both sexes but in males it inhibits mating behaviour; in females it promotes it. Males lacking Or67d inappropriately court other males, whereas females with the mutation become less receptive to courting males. This work shows that a pheromone is sensed by a dedicated olfactory channel anatomically and functionally distinct from the multi-channel coding of common odours.

Suggested Citation

  • Amina Kurtovic & Alexandre Widmer & Barry J. Dickson, 2007. "A single class of olfactory neurons mediates behavioural responses to a Drosophila sex pheromone," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7135), pages 542-546, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7135:d:10.1038_nature05672
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05672
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05672
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05672?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas A. Verschut & Renny Ng & Nicolas P. Doubovetzky & Guillaume Calvez & Jan L. Sneep & Adriaan J. Minnaard & Chih-Ying Su & Mikael A. Carlsson & Bregje Wertheim & Jean-Christophe Billeter, 2023. "Aggregation pheromones have a non-linear effect on oviposition behavior in Drosophila melanogaster," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. David Scott & Alicia Shields & Michaela Straker & Heidi Dalrymple & Priya K Dhillon & Singh Harbinder, 2011. "Variation in the Male Pheromones and Mating Success of Wild Caught Drosophila melanogaster," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(8), pages 1-8, August.
    3. Pranjul Singh & Shefali Goyal & Smith Gupta & Sanket Garg & Abhinav Tiwari & Varad Rajput & Alexander Shakeel Bates & Arjit Kant Gupta & Nitin Gupta, 2023. "Combinatorial encoding of odors in the mosquito antennal lobe," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Javier J How & Saket Navlakha & Sreekanth H Chalasani, 2021. "Neural network features distinguish chemosensory stimuli in Caenorhabditis elegans," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(11), pages 1-38, November.
    5. Nan-Ji Jiang & Hetan Chang & Jerrit Weißflog & Franziska Eberl & Daniel Veit & Kerstin Weniger & Bill S. Hansson & Markus Knaden, 2023. "Ozone exposure disrupts insect sexual communication," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, December.
    6. Martin F Strube-Bloss & Austin Brown & Johannes Spaethe & Thomas Schmitt & Wolfgang Rössler, 2015. "Extracting the Behaviorally Relevant Stimulus: Unique Neural Representation of Farnesol, a Component of the Recruitment Pheromone of Bombus terrestris," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, September.
    7. Shiu-Ling Chen & Bo-Ting Liu & Wang-Pao Lee & Sin-Bo Liao & Yao-Bang Deng & Chia-Lin Wu & Shuk-Man Ho & Bing-Xian Shen & Guan-Hock Khoo & Wei-Chiang Shiu & Chih-Hsuan Chang & Hui-Wen Shih & Jung-Kun W, 2022. "WAKE-mediated modulation of cVA perception via a hierarchical neuro-endocrine axis in Drosophila male-male courtship behaviour," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:446:y:2007:i:7135:d:10.1038_nature05672. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.