Sex peptide regulates female receptivity through serotoninergic neurons in Drosophila

Yan Tong Yang; Shao Wei Hu; Xiaonan Li; Yuanjie Sun; Ping He; Kristi Anne Kohlmeier; Yan Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106123

Sex peptide regulates female receptivity through serotoninergic neurons in Drosophila

iScience. 2023 Feb 2;26(3):106123. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106123. eCollection 2023 Mar 17.

Authors

Yan Tong Yang^{1

2

3

4}, Shao Wei Hu^{1

5

6}, Xiaonan Li^{1

5}, Yuanjie Sun^{1

5}, Ping He^{1

5}, Kristi Anne Kohlmeier^{3

4}, Yan Zhu^{1

2

5

4

7}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 15 Datun Road, Beijing 100101, China.
² Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China.
³ Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁴ Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Beijing 101408, China.
⁵ College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁶ ENT Institute and Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Eye & ENT Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200031, China.
⁷ Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100190, China.

Abstract

The courtship ritual is a dynamic interplay between males and females. Courtship successfully leading to copulation is determined by the intention of both parties which is conveyed by complex action sequences. In Drosophila, the neural mechanisms controlling the female's willingness to mate, or sexual receptivity, have only recently become the focus of investigations. Here, we report that pre-mating sexual receptivity in females requires activity within a subset of serotonergic projection neurons (SPNs), which positively regulate courtship success. Of interest, a male-derived sex peptide, SP, which was transferred to females during copulation acted to inhibit the activity of SPN and suppressed receptivity. Downstream of 5-HT, subsets of 5-HT7 receptor neurons played critical roles in SP-induced suppression of sexual receptivity. Together, our study reveals a complex serotonin signaling system in the central brain of Drosophila which manages the female's desire to mate.

Keywords: Behavioral neuroscience; Molecular neuroscience; Natural sciences; Neuroscience.