Background: Drosophila flies explore the environment very efficiently in order to colonize it. They explore collectively, not individually, so that when a few land on a food spot, they attract the others by signs. This behaviour leads to aggregation of individuals and optimizes the screening of mates and egg-laying on the most favourable food spots.
Results: Flies perform cycles of exploration/aggregation depending on the resources of the environment. This behavioural ecology constitutes an excellent model for analyzing simultaneous processing of neurosensory information. We reasoned that the decision of flies to land somewhere in order to achieve aggregation is based on simultaneous integration of signals (visual, olfactory, acoustic) during their flight. On the basis of what flies do in nature, we designed laboratory tests to analyze the phenomenon of neuronal coincidence. We screened many mutants of genes involved in neuronal metabolism and the synaptic machinery.
Conclusion: Mutants of NO-dependent cyclase show a specifically-marked behaviour phenotype, but on the other hand they are associated with moderate biochemical defects. We show that these mutants present errors in integrative and/or coincident processing of signals, which are not reducible to the functions of the peripheral sensory cells.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963332 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-8-65 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Cytoglobin regulates NO-dependent cilia motility and organ laterality during development.
Nat Commun
December 2023
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA.
Cytoglobin is a heme protein with unresolved physiological function. Genetic deletion of zebrafish cytoglobin (cygb2) causes developmental defects in left-right cardiac determination, which in humans is associated with defects in ciliary function and low airway epithelial nitric oxide production. Here we show that Cygb2 co-localizes with cilia and with the nitric oxide synthase Nos2b in the zebrafish Kupffer's vesicle, and that cilia structure and function are disrupted in cygb2 mutants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNitric oxide signaling pathways in the normal and pathological bladder: Do they provide new pharmacological pathways?-ICI-RS 2023.
Neurourol Urodyn
August 2024
School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Aims: The nitric oxide (NO•)/soluble guanylate cyclase/cyclic-GMP (cGMP) signaling pathway is ubiquitous and regulates several functions in physiological systems as diverse as the vascular, nervous, and renal systems. However, its roles in determining normal and abnormal lower urinary tract functions are unclear. The aim was to identify potential therapeutic targets associated with this pathway to manage lower urinary tract functional disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt takes two to tango: cardiac fibroblast-derived NO-induced cGMP enters cardiac myocytes and increases cAMP by inhibiting PDE3.
Commun Biol
May 2023
Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
The occurrence of NO/cGMP signalling in cardiac cells is a matter of debate. Recent measurements with a FRET-based cGMP indicator in isolated cardiac cells revealed NO-induced cGMP signals in cardiac fibroblasts while cardiomyocytes were devoid of these signals. In a fibroblast/myocyte co-culture model though, cGMP formed in fibroblasts in response to NO entered cardiomyocytes via gap junctions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) is the primary nitric oxide (NO) receptor in higher eukaryotes, including humans. NO-dependent signaling via sGC is associated with important physiological effects in the vascular, pulmonary, and neurological systems, and sGC itself is an established drug target for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension due to its central role in vasodilation. Despite isolation in the late 1970s, high-resolution structural information on full-length sGC remained elusive until recent cryo-electron microscopy structures were determined of the protein in both the basal unactivated state and the NO-activated state.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNitric oxide signaling in ctenophores.
Front Neurosci
March 2023
Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of RAS, Moscow, Russia.
Nitric oxide (NO) is one of the most ancient and versatile signal molecules across all domains of life. NO signaling might also play an essential role in the origin of animal organization. Yet, practically nothing is known about the distribution and functions of NO-dependent signaling pathways in representatives of early branching metazoans such as Ctenophora.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!