Serotonin Signaling Modulates Sexual Receptivity of Virgin Female Drosophila

Overview

Journal Neurosci Bull

Specialty Neurology

Date 2022 Jul 5

PMID 35788510

Authors

Baoxu Ma

Rencong Wang

Yaohua Liu

Bowen Deng

Tao Wang

Fengming Wu

Chuan Zhou

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The choice of females to accept or reject male courtship is a critical decision for animal reproduction. Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) has been found to regulate sexual behavior in many species, but it is unclear how 5-HT and its receptors function to regulate different aspects of sexual behavior. Here we used Drosophila melanogaster as the model animal to investigate how 5-HT and its receptors modulate female sexual receptivity. We found that knockout of tryptophan hydroxylase (Trh), which is involved in the biosynthesis of 5-HT, severely reduced virgin female receptivity without affecting post-mating behaviors. We identified a subset of sexually dimorphic Trh neurons that co-expressed fruitless (fru), in which the activity was correlated with sexual receptivity in females. We also found that 5-HT and 5-HT receptors regulate virgin female receptivity. Our findings demonstrate how 5-HT functions in sexually dimorphic neurons to promote virgin female receptivity through two of its receptors.

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