Drosophila gustatory projections are segregated by taste modality and connectivity
- University of California, Berkeley, United States
- University of California Berkeley, United States
- University of Vermont, United States
Abstract
Gustatory sensory neurons detect caloric and harmful compounds in potential food and convey this information to the brain to inform feeding decisions. To examine the signals that gustatory neurons transmit and receive, we reconstructed gustatory axons and their synaptic sites in the adult Drosophila melanogaster brain, utilizing a whole-brain electron microscopy volume. We reconstructed 87 gustatory projections from the proboscis labellum in the right hemisphere and 57 from the left, representing the majority of labellar gustatory axons. Gustatory neurons contain a nearly equal number of interspersed pre-and post-synaptic sites, with extensive synaptic connectivity among gustatory axons. Morphology- and connectivity-based clustering revealed six distinct groups, likely representing neurons recognizing different taste modalities. The vast majority of synaptic connections are between neurons of the same group. This study resolves the anatomy of labellar gustatory projections, reveals that gustatory projections are segregated based on taste modality, and uncovers synaptic connections that may alter the transmission of gustatory signals.
Data availability
FAFB neuronal reconstructions will be available from Virtual Fly Brain (https://fafb.catmaid.virtualflybrain.org/).
Article and author information
Author details
Gabriella R Sterne
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01DC013280)
- Kristin Scott
National Institutes of Health (F32DK117671)
- Gabriella R Sterne
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2022, Engert 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.
Metrics
-
- 2,526
- views
-
- 536
- downloads
-
- 25
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Drosophila gustatory projections are segregated by taste modality and connectivity
eLife 11:e78110.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78110
