Metamorphosis of memory circuits in Drosophila reveals a strategy for evolving a larval brain

  1. James W Truman  Is a corresponding author
  2. Jacquelyn Price
  3. Rosa L Miyares
  4. Tzumin Lee
  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States

Abstract

We have focused on the mushroom bodies (MB) of Drosophila to determine how the larval circuits are formed and then transformed into those of the adult at metamorphosis. The adult MB has a core of thousands of Kenyon neurons; axons of the early-born g class form a medial lobe and those from later-born a'b' and ab classes form both medial and vertical lobes. The larva, however, hatches with only g neurons and forms a vertical lobe 'facsimile' using larval-specific axon branches from its g neurons. Computations by the MB involves MB input (MBINs) and output (MBONs) neurons that divide the lobes into discrete compartments. The larva has 10 such compartments while the adult MB has 16. We determined the fates of 28 of the 32 types of MBONs and MBINs that define the 10 larval compartments. Seven larval compartments are eventually incorporated into the adult MB; four of their larval MBINs die, while 12 MBINs/MBONs continue into the adult MB although with some compartment shifting. The remaining three larval compartments are larval specific, and their MBIN/MBONs trans-differentiate at metamorphosis, leaving the MB and joining other adult brain circuits. With the loss of the larval vertical lobe facsimile, the adult vertical lobes, are made de novo at metamorphosis, and their MBONs/MBINs are recruited from the pool of adult-specific cells. The combination of cell death, compartment shifting, trans-differentiation, and recruitment of new neurons result in no larval MBIN-MBON connections persisting through metamorphosis. At this simple level, then, we find no anatomical substrate for a memory trace persisting from larva to adult. For the neurons that trans-differentiate, our data suggest that their adult phenotypes are in line with their evolutionarily ancestral roles while their larval phenotypes are derived adaptations for the larval stage. These cells arise primarily within lineages that also produce permanent MBINs and MBONs, suggesting that larval specifying factors may allow information related to birth-order or sibling identity to be interpreted in a modified manner in these neurons to cause them to adopt a modified, larval phenotype. The loss of such factors at metamorphosis, though, would then allow these cells to adopt their ancestral phenotype in the adult system.

Data availability

All data generated or analyses in this study are included in the manuscript and the supporting images

Article and author information

Author details

  1. James W Truman

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
    For correspondence
    jwt@uw.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9209-5435
  2. Jacquelyn Price

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Rosa L Miyares

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Tzumin Lee

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0569-0111

Funding

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  • James W Truman

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  • Tzumin Lee

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2023, Truman et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 5,282
    views
  • 774
    downloads
  • 34
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. James W Truman
  2. Jacquelyn Price
  3. Rosa L Miyares
  4. Tzumin Lee
(2023)
Metamorphosis of memory circuits in Drosophila reveals a strategy for evolving a larval brain
eLife 12:e80594.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80594

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80594

Further reading

    1. Developmental Biology
    Valeria Sulzyk, Ludmila Curci ... Patricia S Cuasnicu
    Research Article

    Numerous reports showed that the epididymis plays key roles in the acquisition of sperm fertilizing ability but its contribution to embryo development remains less understood. Female mice mated with males with simultaneous mutations in Crisp1 and Crisp3 genes exhibited normal in vivo fertilization but impaired embryo development. In this work, we found that this phenotype was not due to delayed fertilization, and it was observed in eggs fertilized by epididymal sperm either in vivo or in vitro. Of note, eggs fertilized in vitro by mutant sperm displayed impaired meiotic resumption unrelated to Ca2+ oscillations defects during egg activation, supporting potential sperm DNA defects. Interestingly, cauda but not caput epididymal mutant sperm exhibited increased DNA fragmentation, revealing that DNA integrity defects appear during epididymal transit. Moreover, exposing control sperm to mutant epididymal fluid or to Ca2+-supplemented control fluid significantly increased DNA fragmentation. This, together with the higher intracellular Ca2+ levels detected in mutant sperm, supports a dysregulation in Ca2+ homeostasis within the epididymis and sperm as the main factor responsible for embryo development failure. These findings highlight the contribution of the epididymis beyond fertilization and identify CRISP1 and CRISP3 as novel factors essential for sperm DNA integrity and early embryo development.

    1. Developmental Biology
    Satoshi Yamashita, Shuji Ishihara, François Graner
    Research Article

    Apical constriction is a basic mechanism for epithelial morphogenesis, making columnar cells into wedge shape and bending a flat cell sheet. It has long been thought that an apically localized myosin generates a contractile force and drives the cell deformation. However, when we tested the increased apical surface contractility in a cellular Potts model simulation, the constriction increased pressure inside the cell and pushed its lateral surface outward, making the cells adopt a drop shape instead of the expected wedge shape. To keep the lateral surface straight, we considered an alternative model in which the cell shape was determined by cell membrane elasticity and endocytosis, and the increased pressure is balanced among the cells. The cellular Potts model simulation succeeded in reproducing the apical constriction, and it also suggested that a too strong apical surface tension might prevent the tissue invagination.