The neuronal basis of amino acid sensing in Drosophila melanogaster

• Applicant: Dr. Daniel Münch
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology ; Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 329458655

A balanced intake of nutrients like carbohydrates and amino acids is crucial for the health and wellbeing of organisms. Animals across species including flies, mice and humans, are able to adjust their diet to keep this balance. Imbalanced diets lead to health issues like obesity and reduce the lifespan and offspring production of animals. To maintain nutrient homeostasis, animals have to make feeding decisions based on their current internal state and the sensory evaluation of food sources. For the evaluation of food sources, animals depend on their gustatory system. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is an ideal model organism to investigate gustatory processing, as its brain is easily accessible for imaging techniques and individual neurons can be targeted and modulated via the large set of available genetic tools. How Drosophila detects amino acids in food sources and how amino acid stimuli are processed in the insect brain to make feeding decisions is unknown. This project aims at combining Drosophila genetics, neuronal imaging, and automated quantitative behavioral assays to 1) identify the amino acid sensitive gustatory neurons in the fruit fly responsible for selective amino acid feeding, 2) map higher order amino acid taste circuits in the fly brain, and 3) investigate how internal states modulate amino acid sensory inputs and higher order taste circuits. Taken together this project will allow the identification of the neuronal basis for the last uncharacterized gustatory modality in insects and provide an understanding of how sensory information is used to make feeding decisions according to the internal state of the animal.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Portugal
• Host: Dr. Carlos Ribeiro, Ph.D.