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Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on April 22, 2009
Chemical Senses 2009 34(5):441-449; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjp019
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Water Taste Transduction Pathway Is Calcium Dependent in Drosophila

Nicolas Meunier1, Frédéric Marion-Poll and Philippe Lucas

INRA (Institut National de Recherche Agronomique), UMR (Unité mixte de recherche) 1272 Physiologie de l'Insecte—Signalisation et Communication, F-78000 Versailles, France 1 Present address: INRA, UMR 1197 Neurobiologie de l'Olfaction et de la Prise Alimentaire, Récepteurs et Communication Chimique, F-78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France and Université de Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, F-78000 Versailles, France

Correspondence to be sent to: Nicolas Meunier, NOPA, INRA-78352 Jouy-en-Josas Cedex, France. e-mail: nicolas.meunier{at}jouy.inra.fr


  Abstract

In mammals, detection of osmolarity by the gustatory system was overlooked until recently. In insects, specific taste receptor neurons detect hypoosmotic stimuli and are commonly called "W" (water) cells. W cells are easy to access in vivo and represent a good model to study the transduction of hypoosmotic stimuli. Using pharmacological and genetic approaches in Drosophila, we show that tarsal W cell firing activity depends on the concentration of external calcium bathing the dendrite. This dependence was confirmed by the strong inhibition of W cell responses to hypoosmotic stimuli by lanthanum (IC50 = 8 nM), an ion known to inhibit calcium-permeable channels. Downstream, the transduction pathway likely involves calmodulin because calmodulin antagonists such as W-7 (IC50 = 2 µM) and fluphenazine (IC50 = 30 µM) prevented the activation of the W cell by hypoosmotic stimuli. A protein kinase C (PKC) may also be involved as W cell responses were blocked by PKC inhibitors, chelerythrine (IC50 = 20 µM) and staurosporine (IC50 = 30 µM). It was also reduced when expressing an inhibitory pseudosubstrate of PKC in gustatory receptor neurons. In the rat, the transduction pathway underlying low osmolarity detection involves aquaporin and swelling-activated ion channels. Our study suggests that the transduction pathway of hypoosmotic stimuli in insects differs from mammals.

Key words: calmodulin, hypoosmotic, insect, osmolarity, PKC, transduction

Accepted 18 March 2009


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