Humidity response depends on the small soluble protein Obp59a in Drosophila
- Yale University, United States
Abstract
Hygrosensation is an essential sensory modality that is used to find sources of moisture. Hygroreception allows animals to avoid desiccation, an existential threat that is increasing with climate change. Humidity response, however, remains poorly understood. Here we find that humidity-detecting sensilla in the Drosophila antenna express and rely on a small protein, Obp59a. Mutants lacking this protein are defective in three hygrosensory behaviors, one operating over seconds, one over minutes, and one over hours. Remarkably, loss of Obp59a and humidity response leads to an increase in desiccation resistance. Obp59a is an exceptionally well-conserved, highly localized, and abundantly expressed member of a large family of secreted proteins. Antennal Obps have long been believed to transport hydrophobic odorants, and a role in hygroreception was unexpected. The results enhance our understanding of hygroreception, Obp function, and desiccation resistance, a process that is critical to insect survival.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Dwight N. and Noyes D. Clark Scholarship Fund
- Jennifer S Sun
P.E.O. Scholar Award
- Jennifer S Sun
National Science Foundation (Graduate Research Fellowship Program)
- Jennifer S Sun
- Nikki K Larter
National Institutes of Health (National Research Service Award)
- J Sebastian Chahda
National Institutes of Health (T32 GM007499)
- Jennifer S Sun
National Institutes of Health (U01 Al15648-02)
- John R Carlson
National Institutes of Health (RO1s)
- John R Carlson
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Leslie C Griffith, Brandeis University, United States
Version history
- Received: June 15, 2018
- Accepted: September 18, 2018
- Accepted Manuscript published: September 19, 2018 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: October 16, 2018 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2018, Sun et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Humidity response depends on the small soluble protein Obp59a in Drosophila
eLife 7:e39249.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.39249
