A single pair of pharyngeal neurons functions as a commander to reject high salt in Drosophila melanogaster.

Salt (NaCl), is an essential nutrient for survival, while excessive salt can be detrimental. In the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, internal taste organs in the pharynx are critical gatekeepers impacting the decision to accept or reject a food. Currently, our understanding of the mechanism through which pharyngeal gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) sense high salt are rudimentary. Here, we found that a member of the ionotropic receptor family, Ir60b, is expressed exclusively in a pair of GRNs activated by high salt. Using a two-way choice assay (DrosoX) to measure ingestion volume, we demonstrate that IR60b and two co-receptors IR25a and IR76b are required to prevent high salt consumption. Mutants lacking external taste organs but retaining the internal taste organs in the pharynx exhibit much higher salt avoidance than flies with all taste organs but missing the three IRs. Our findings highlight the vital role for IRs in a pharyngeal GRN to control ingestion of high salt.

Targeting sex determination to suppress mosquito populations.

Each year, hundreds of millions of people are infected with arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika, which are all primarily spread by the notorious mosquito Aedes aegypti. Traditional control measures have proven insufficient, necessitating innovations. In response, here we generate a next-generation CRISPR-based precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) for Ae. aegypti that disrupts genes essential for sex determination and fertility, producing predominantly sterile males that can be deployed at any life stage. Using mathematical models and empirical testing, we demonstrate that released pgSIT males can effectively compete with, suppress, and eliminate caged mosquito populations. This versatile species-specific platform has the potential for field deployment to effectively control wild populations of disease vectors.

A single pair of pharyngeal neurons functions as a commander to reject high salt in Drosophila melanogaster.

Salt is an essential nutrient for survival, while excessive NaCl can be detrimental. In the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, internal taste organs in the pharynx are critical gatekeepers impacting the decision to accept or reject a food. Currently, our understanding of the mechanism through which pharyngeal gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) sense high salt are rudimentary. Here, we found that a member of the ionotropic receptor family, Ir60b, is expressed exclusively in a pair of GRNs activated by high salt. Using a two-way choice assay (DrosoX) to measure ingestion volume, we demonstrate that IR60b and two coreceptors IR25a and IR76b, are required to prevent high salt consumption. Mutants lacking external taste organs but retaining the internal taste organs in the pharynx exhibit much higher salt avoidance than flies with all taste organs but missing the three IRs. Our findings highlight the vital role for IRs in a pharyngeal GRN to control ingestion of high salt.

Craig Montell.

Interview with Craig Montell, whose work focuses on identifying receptors, channels and sensory neurons important in vision, taste, and temperature sensation.

Rescue of proteotoxic stress and neurodegeneration by the Zn2+ transporter ZIP7.

Proteotoxic stress drives numerous degenerative diseases. In response to misfolded proteins, cells adapt by activating the unfolded protein response (UPR), including endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation (ERAD). However persistent stress triggers apoptosis. Enhancing ERAD is a promising therapeutic approach for protein misfolding diseases. From plants to humans, loss of the Zn2+ transporter ZIP7 causes ER stress, however the mechanism is unknown. Here we show that ZIP7 enhances ERAD and that cytosolic Zn2+ is limiting for deubiquitination of client proteins by the Rpn11 Zn2+ metalloproteinase as they enter the proteasome in Drosophila and human cells. ZIP7 overexpression rescues defective vision caused by misfolded rhodopsin in Drosophila. Thus ZIP7 overexpression may prevent diseases caused by proteotoxic stress, and existing ZIP inhibitors may be effective against proteasome-dependent cancers.

Targeting Sex Determination to Suppress Mosquito Populations.

Each year, hundreds of millions of people are infected with arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika, which are all primarily spread by the notorious mosquito Aedes aegypti. Traditional control measures have proven insufficient, necessitating innovations. In response, here we generate a next generation CRISPR-based precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) for Aedes aegypti that disrupts genes essential for sex determination and fertility, producing predominantly sterile males that can be deployed at any life stage. Using mathematical models and empirical testing, we demonstrate that released pgSIT males can effectively compete with, suppress, and eliminate caged mosquito populations. This versatile species-specific platform has the potential for field deployment to effectively control wild populations of disease vectors.

Targeting Sex Determination to Suppress Mosquito Populations.

Each year, hundreds of millions of people are infected with arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika, which are all primarily spread by the notorious mosquito Aedes aegypti. Traditional control measures have proven insuficient, necessitating innovations. In response, here we generate a next generation CRISPR-based precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) for Aedes aegypti that disrupts genes essential for sex determination and fertility, producing predominantly sterile males that can be deployed at any life stage. Using mathematical models and empirical testing, we demonstrate that released pgSIT males can effectively compete with, suppress, and eliminate caged mosquito populations. This versatile species-specific platform has the potential for field deployment to control wild populations, safely curtailing disease transmission.

Alleviation of thermal nociception depends on heat-sensitive neurons and a TRP channel in the brain.

Acute avoidance of dangerous temperatures is critical for animals to prevent or minimize injury. Therefore, surface receptors have evolved to endow neurons with the capacity to detect noxious heat so that animals can initiate escape behaviors. Animals including humans have evolved intrinsic pain-suppressing systems to attenuate nociception under some circumstances. Here, using Drosophila melanogaster, we uncovered a new mechanism through which thermal nociception is suppressed. We identified a single descending neuron in each brain hemisphere, which is the center for suppression of thermal nociception. These Epi neurons, for Epione-the goddess of soothing of pain-express a nociception-suppressing neuropeptide Allatostatin C (AstC), which is related to a mammalian anti-nociceptive peptide, somatostatin. Epi neurons are direct sensors for noxious heat, and when activated they release AstC, which diminishes nociception. We found that Epi neurons also express the heat-activated TRP channel, Painless (Pain), and thermal activation of Epi neurons and the subsequent suppression of thermal nociception depend on Pain. Thus, while TRP channels are well known to sense noxious temperatures to promote avoidance behavior, this work reveals the first role for a TRP channel for detecting noxious temperatures for the purpose of suppressing rather than enhancing nociception behavior in response to hot thermal stimuli.

Alkaline taste sensation through the alkaliphile chloride channel in Drosophila.

The sense of taste is an important sentinel governing what should or should not be ingested by an animal, with high pH sensation playing a critical role in food selection. Here we explore the molecular identities of taste receptors detecting the basic pH of food using Drosophila melanogaster as a model. We identify a chloride channel named alkaliphile (Alka), which is both necessary and sufficient for aversive taste responses to basic food. Alka forms a high-pH-gated chloride channel and is specifically expressed in a subset of gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs). Optogenetic activation of alka-expressing GRNs is sufficient to suppress attractive feeding responses to sucrose. Conversely, inactivation of these GRNs causes severe impairments in the aversion to high pH. Altogether, our discovery of Alka as an alkaline taste receptor lays the groundwork for future research on alkaline taste sensation in other animals.

An insecticide target in mechanoreceptor neurons.

Hundreds of neurotoxic insecticides are currently in use. However, only a few direct targets have been identified. Here, using Drosophila and the insecticide flonicamid, we identified nicotinamidase (Naam) as a previous unidentified molecular target for an insecticide. Naam is expressed in chordotonal stretch-receptor neurons, and inhibition of Naam by a metabolite of flonicamid, TFNA-AM (4-trifluoromethylnicotinamide), induces accumulation of substrate nicotinamide and greatly inhibits negative geotaxis. Engineered flies harboring a point mutation in the active site show insecticide resistance and defects in gravity sensing. Bees are resistant to flonicamid because of a gene duplication, resulting in the generation of a TFNA-AM-insensitive Naam. Our results, in combination with the absence of genes encoding Naam in vertebrate genomes, suggest that TFNA-AM and potential species-specific Naam inhibitors could be developed as novel insecticides, anthelmintics, and antimicrobials for agriculture and human health.

Drosophila proboscis extension response and GCaMP imaging for assaying food appeal based on grittiness.

Fruit flies sense the features of food that are driven by particle size, including smoothness versus grittiness, by deflection of sensilla decorating the labellum, and md-L neurons. We describe adaptation of the Drosophila proboscis extension response assay, including steps to perform the taste tests and score behavioral responses, to determine preferences to foods with different sized particles. We also describe calcium imaging in GCaMP-expressing flies to assess the responses of md-L neurons to different levels of taste sensilla deflection. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Li and Montell. (2021).

Endocannabinoids produced in photoreceptor cells in response to light activate Drosophila TRP channels.

Drosophila phototransduction is a model for signaling cascades that culminate in the activation of transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channels. TRP and TRPL are the canonical TRP (TRPC) channels that are regulated by light stimulation of rhodopsin and engagement of Gαq and phospholipase Cß (PLC). Lipid metabolite(s) generated downstream of PLC are essential for the activation of the TRPC channels in photoreceptor cells. We sought to identify the key lipids produced subsequent to PLC stimulation that contribute to channel activation. Here, using genetics, lipid analysis, and Ca2+ imaging, we found that light increased the amount of an abundant endocannabinoid, 2-linoleoyl glycerol (2-LG), in vivo. The increase in 2-LG amounts depended on the PLC and diacylglycerol lipase encoded by norpA and inaE, respectively. This endocannabinoid facilitated TRPC-dependent Ca2+ influx in a heterologous expression system and in dissociated ommatidia from compound eyes. Moreover, 2-LG and mechanical stimulation cooperatively activated TRPC channels in ommatidia. We propose that 2-LG is a physiologically relevant endocannabinoid that activates TRPC channels in photoreceptor cells.

Dietary restriction and the transcription factor clock delay eye aging to extend lifespan in Drosophila Melanogaster.

Many vital processes in the eye are under circadian regulation, and circadian dysfunction has emerged as a potential driver of eye aging. Dietary restriction is one of the most robust lifespan-extending therapies and amplifies circadian rhythms with age. Herein, we demonstrate that dietary restriction extends lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster by promoting circadian homeostatic processes that protect the visual system from age- and light-associated damage. Altering the positive limb core molecular clock transcription factor, CLOCK, or CLOCK-output genes, accelerates visual senescence, induces a systemic immune response, and shortens lifespan. Flies subjected to dietary restriction are protected from the lifespan-shortening effects of photoreceptor activation. Inversely, photoreceptor inactivation, achieved via mutating rhodopsin or housing flies in constant darkness, primarily extends the lifespan of flies reared on a high-nutrient diet. Our findings establish the eye as a diet-sensitive modulator of lifespan and indicates that vision is an antagonistically pleiotropic process that contributes to organismal aging.

Drosophila TRPγ is required in neuroendocrine cells for post-ingestive food selection.

The mechanism through which the brain senses the metabolic state, enabling an animal to regulate food consumption, and discriminate between nutritional and non-nutritional foods is a fundamental question. Flies choose the sweeter non-nutritive sugar, L-glucose, over the nutritive D-glucose if they are not starved. However, under starvation conditions, they switch their preference to D-glucose, and this occurs independent of peripheral taste neurons. Here, we found that eliminating the TRPγ channel impairs the ability of starved flies to choose D-glucose. This food selection depends on trpγ expression in neurosecretory cells in the brain that express diuretic hormone 44 (DH44). Loss of trpγ increases feeding, alters the physiology of the crop, which is the fly stomach equivalent, and decreases intracellular sugars and glycogen levels. Moreover, survival of starved trpγ flies is reduced. Expression of trpγ in DH44 neurons reverses these deficits. These results highlight roles for TRPγ in coordinating feeding with the metabolic state through expression in DH44 neuroendocrine cells.

The olfactory gating of visual preferences to human skin and visible spectra in mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes track odors, locate hosts, and find mates visually. The color of a food resource, such as a flower or warm-blooded host, can be dominated by long wavelengths of the visible light spectrum (green to red for humans) and is likely important for object recognition and localization. However, little is known about the hues that attract mosquitoes or how odor affects mosquito visual search behaviors. We use a real-time 3D tracking system and wind tunnel that allows careful control of the olfactory and visual environment to quantify the behavior of more than 1.3 million mosquito trajectories. We find that CO2 induces a strong attraction to specific spectral bands, including those that humans perceive as cyan, orange, and red. Sensitivity to orange and red correlates with mosquitoes' strong attraction to the color spectrum of human skin, which is dominated by these wavelengths. The attraction is eliminated by filtering the orange and red bands from the skin color spectrum and by introducing mutations targeting specific long-wavelength opsins or CO2 detection. Collectively, our results show that odor is critical for mosquitoes' wavelength preferences and that the mosquito visual system is a promising target for inhibiting their attraction to human hosts.

Reversing insecticide resistance with allelic-drive in Drosophila melanogaster.

A recurring target-site mutation identified in various pests and disease vectors alters the voltage gated sodium channel (vgsc) gene (often referred to as knockdown resistance or kdr) to confer resistance to commonly used insecticides, pyrethroids and DDT. The ubiquity of kdr mutations poses a major global threat to the continued use of insecticides as a means for vector control. In this study, we generate common kdr mutations in isogenic laboratory Drosophila strains using CRISPR/Cas9 editing. We identify differential sensitivities to permethrin and DDT versus deltamethrin among these mutants as well as contrasting physiological consequences of two different kdr mutations. Importantly, we apply a CRISPR-based allelic-drive to replace a resistant kdr mutation with a susceptible wild-type counterpart in population cages. This successful proof-of-principle opens-up numerous possibilities including targeted reversion of insecticide-resistant populations to a native susceptible state or replacement of malaria transmitting mosquitoes with those bearing naturally occurring parasite resistant alleles.

Requirement for an Otopetrin-like protein for acid taste in Drosophila.

Receptors for bitter, sugar, and other tastes have been identified in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, while a broadly tuned receptor for the taste of acid has been elusive. Previous work showed that such a receptor was unlikely to be encoded by a gene within one of the two major families of taste receptors in Drosophila, the "gustatory receptors" and "ionotropic receptors." Here, to identify the acid taste receptor, we tested the contributions of genes encoding proteins distantly related to the mammalian Otopertrin1 (OTOP1) proton channel that functions as a sour receptor in mice. RNA interference (RNAi) knockdown or mutation by CRISPR/Cas9 of one of the genes, Otopetrin-Like A (OtopLA), but not of the others (OtopLB or OtopLC) severely impaired the behavioral rejection to a sweet solution laced with high levels of HCl or carboxylic acids and greatly reduced acid-induced action potentials measured from taste hairs. An isoform of OtopLA that we isolated from the proboscis was sufficient to restore behavioral sensitivity and acid-induced action potential firing in OtopLA mutant flies. At lower concentrations, HCl was attractive to the flies, and this attraction was abolished in the OtopLA mutant. Cell type-specific rescue experiments showed that OtopLA functions in distinct subsets of gustatory receptor neurons for repulsion and attraction to high and low levels of protons, respectively. This work highlights a functional conservation of a sensory receptor in flies and mammals and shows that the same receptor can function in both appetitive and repulsive behaviors.

A DREaMR system to simplify combining mutations with rescue transgenes in Aedes aegypti.

In most experimental animals, it is challenging to combine mutations and rescue transgenes and to use bipartite systems to assess gene expression. To circumvent the difficulties in combining multiple genetic elements, we developed the DREaMR (Drug-on, REporter, Mutant, Rescue) system. Using Drosophila white as the initial model, we demonstrated that introduction of a single insertion by CRISPR/Cas9 created a null mutation, a tagged rescue construct, which could be induced with doxycycline, and which allowed assessment of protein expression. To create a DREaMR in an organism in which combining multiple genetic elements is more problematic than in Drosophila, we tested the mosquito, Aedes aegypti-the insect vector for dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and other viral diseases. We generated a DREaMR allele in the kh gene, which permitted us to induce expression of the rescue construct, and detect expression of Kh. Thus, this system avoids the need to perform genetic crosses to introduce an inducible rescue transgene in a mutant background, or to combine driver and reporter lines to examine expression of the targeted protein. We propose that DREaMR provides a system that can be applied to additional mosquito vectors as well as other organisms in which CRISPR/Cas9 is effective.

An Autonomous Molecular Bioluminescent Reporter (AMBER) for Voltage Imaging in Freely Moving Animals.

Genetically encoded reporters have greatly increased our understanding of biology. While fluorescent reporters have been widely used, photostability and phototoxicity have hindered their use in long-term experiments. Bioluminescence overcomes some of these challenges but requires the addition of an exogenous luciferin limiting its use. Using a modular approach, Autonomous Molecular BioluminEscent Reporter (AMBER), an indicator of membrane potential is engineered. Unlike other bioluminescent systems, AMBER is a voltage-gated luciferase coupling the functionalities of the Ciona voltage-sensing domain (VSD) and bacterial luciferase, luxAB. When co-expressed with the luciferin-producing genes, AMBER reversibly switches the bioluminescent intensity as a function of membrane potential. Using biophysical and biochemical methods, it is shown that AMBER switches its enzymatic activity from an OFF to an ON state as a function of the membrane potential. Upon depolarization, AMBER switches from a low to a high enzymatic activity state, showing a several-fold increase in the bioluminescence output (ΔL/L). AMBER in the pharyngeal muscles and mechanosensory touch neurons of Caenorhabditis elegans is expressed. Using the compressed sensing approach, the electropharingeogram of the C. elegans pharynx is reconstructed, validating the sensor in vivo. Thus, AMBER represents the first fully genetically encoded bioluminescent reporter without requiring exogenous luciferin addition.

Suppressing mosquito populations with precision guided sterile males.

The mosquito Aedes aegypti is the principal vector for arboviruses including dengue/yellow fever, chikungunya, and Zika virus, infecting hundreds of millions of people annually. Unfortunately, traditional control methodologies are insufficient, so innovative control methods are needed. To complement existing measures, here we develop a molecular genetic control system termed precision-guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT) in Aedes aegypti. PgSIT uses a simple CRISPR-based approach to generate flightless females and sterile males that are deployable at any life stage. Supported by mathematical models, we empirically demonstrate that released pgSIT males can compete, suppress, and even eliminate mosquito populations. This platform technology could be used in the field, and adapted to many vectors, for controlling wild populations to curtail disease in a safe, confinable, and reversible manner.