The gastrointestinal tract in the adult Drosophila serves as a model system for exploring the mechanisms underlying digestion, absorption and excretion, stem cell plasticity, and inter-organ communication, particularly through the gut–brain axis. It is also useful for studying the cellular and adaptive responses to dietary changes, alterations in microbiota and immunity, and systematic and endocrine signals. Despite the various cell types and distinct regions in the gastrointestinal tract...

The link between the biological clock and reproduction is evident in most metazoans. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a key model organism in the field of chronobiology because of its welldefined networks of molecular clock genes and pacemaker neurons in the brain, shows a pronounced diurnal rhythmicity in oogenesis. Still, it is unclear how the circadian clock generates this reproductive rhythm. A subset of the group of neurons designated “posterior dorsal neuron 1” (DN1p), which a...

The Drosophila lymph gland, the larval hematopoietic organ comprised of prohemocytes and mature hemocytes, has been a valuable model for understanding mechanisms underlying hematopoiesis and immunity. Three types of mature hemocytes have been characterized in the lymph gland: plasmatocytes, lamellocytes, and crystal cells, which are analogous to vertebrate myeloid cells, yet molecular underpinnings of the lymph gland hemocytes have been less investigated. Here, we use single-cell RNA sequenci...

Drosophila melanogaster sex peptide receptor (DrmSPR) is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) with ‘dual ligand selectivity’ towards sex peptide (SP) and myoinhibitory peptides (MIPs), which are only remotely related to one another. SPR is conserved in almost all the sequenced lophotrochozoan and ecdysozoan genomes. SPRs from non-drosophilid taxa, such as those from the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti (AeaSPR), Anopheles gambiae (AngSPR), and the sea slug Aplysia californica (ApcSPR), are highly ...

The Gustatory system enables animals to detect toxic bitter chemicals, which is critical for insects to survive food induced toxicity. Cucurbitacin is widely present in plants such as cucumber and gourds that acts as an anti-herbivore chemical and an insecticide. Cucurbitacin has a harmful effect on insect larvae as well. Although various beneficial effects of cucurbitacin such as alleviating hyperglycemia have also been documented, it is not clear what kinds of molecular sensors are required...

Drosophila hemocytes, like those of mammals, are given rise from two distinctive phases during both the embryonic and larval hematopoiesis. Embryonically derived hemocytes, mostly composed of macrophage-like plasmatocytes, are largely identified by genetic markers. However, the cellular diversity and distinct functions of possible subpopulations within plasmatocytes have not been explored in Drosophila larvae. Here, we show that larval plasmatocytes exhibit differential expressions of Hemolec...

Olfactory sensing and its modulation are important for the insects in recognizing diverse odors from the environment and in making correct decisions to survive. Identifying new genes involved in olfactory modulation and unveiling their mechanisms may lead us to understand decision making processes in the central nervous system. Here, we report a novel olfactory function of the cyclic nucleotide‐gated (CNG) channel CG42260 in modulating ab3A olfactory sensory neurons, which specifically resp...