Molecular basis of fatty acid taste in Drosophila

• Published in: eLife Vol. 6
• Main Authors: Ahn, Ji-Eun, Chen, Yan, Amrein, Hubert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 12.12.2017; eLife Sciences Publications Ltd; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
• Subjects: Amino acids; Bitter taste; Ca2+ imaging; Drosophila; Ethanol; Fatty acids; Food; Genes; Gustatory Receptor Neuron; Hypotheses; Insects; Ionotrophic Receptors; Ligands; Mammals; Neurons; Neuroscience; Saturated fatty acids; Software; Sour taste; Sucrose; Sugar; Sweet taste; taste; Taste (Sense); Taste receptors; Transgenes; United States > US; Texas; fatty acids; Drosophila; Ionotrophic Receptors; neuroscience; Ca2+ imaging; Gustatory Receptor Neuron; taste; D. melanogaster
• ISSN: 2050-084X; 2050-084X
• DOI: 10.7554/elife.30115

Behavioral studies have established that appetitive taste responses towards fatty acids are mediated by sweet sensing Gustatory Receptor Neurons (GRNs). Here we show that sweet GRN activation requires the function of the genes , and . The former two genes are expressed in several neurons per sensillum, while expression is restricted to sweet GRNs. Importantly, loss of appetitive behavioral responses to fatty acids in and mutant flies can be completely rescued by expression of respective transgenes in sweet GRNs. Interestingly, appetitive behavioral responses of wild type flies to hexanoic acid reach a plateau at ~1%, but decrease with higher concentration, a property mediated through IR25a/IR76b independent activation of bitter GRNs. With our previous report on sour taste, our studies suggest that IR-based receptors mediate different taste qualities through cell-type specific IR subunits.