Insulin signalling regulates remating in female drosophila

Abstract

Mating rate is a major determinant of female lifespan and fitness, and is predicted to optimize at an intermediate level, beyond which superfluous matings are costly. In female Drosophila melanogaster, nutrition is a key regulator of mating rate but the underlying mechanism is unknown. The evolutionarily conserved insulin/insulin-like growth factor-like signalling (IIS) pathway is responsive to nutrition, and regulates development, metabolism, stress resistance, fecundity and lifespan. Here we show that inhibition of IIS, by ablation of Drosophila insulin-like peptide (DILP)-producing median neurosecretory cells, knockout of dilp2, dilp3 or dilp5 genes, expression of a dominant-negative DILP-receptor (InR) transgene or knockout of Lnk, results in reduced female remating rates. IIS-mediated regulation of female remating can occur independent of virgin receptivity, developmental defects, reduced body size or fecundity, and the receipt of the female receptivity-inhibiting male sex peptide. Our results provide a likely mechanism by which females match remating rates to the perceived nutritional environment. The findings suggest that longevity-mediating genes could often have pleiotropic effects on remating rate. However, overexpression of the IIS-regulated transcription factor dFOXO in the fat body-which extends lifespan- does not affect remating rate. Thus, long life and reduced remating are not obligatorily coupled.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1390
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Biosciences > Cell & Tissue Biomedical Research
Additional Information: This journal is © 2010 The Royal Society This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords: drosophila melanogaster,fitness,mating and reproduction,nutrition,sexual selection,trade-off,Medicine(all),Immunology and Microbiology(all),Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all),Environmental Science(all),Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)
Publication ISSN: 1471-2954
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2024 08:21
Date Deposited: 03 May 2017 12:05
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Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2011-02-07
Published Online Date: 2010-12-22
Accepted Date: 2010-07-30
Authors: Wigby, Stuart
Slack, Cathy (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-7949-4079)
Grönke, Sebastian
Martinez, Pedro
Calboli, Federico C.F.
Chapman, Tracey
Partridge, Linda

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