Item Details

abstract

All organisms are confronted with dynamic environmental changes that challenge homeostasis, which is the operational definition of stress. Stress produces adaptive behavioral and physiological responses, which, in the Metazoa, are mediated through the actions of various hormones. Based on its associated phenotypes and its expression profiles, a candidate stress hormone in Drosophila is the corazonin neuropeptide. We evaluated the potential roles of corazonin in mediating stress-related changes in target behaviors and physiologies through genetic alteration of corazonin neuronal excitability. Ablation of corazonin neurons confers resistance to metabolic, osmotic, and oxidative stress, as measured by survival. Silencing and activation of corazonin neurons lead to differential lifespan under stress, and these effects showed a strong dependence on sex. Additionally, altered corazonin neuron physiology leads to fundamental differences in locomotor activity, and these effects were also sex-dependent. The dynamics of altered locomotor behavior accompanying stress was likewise altered in flies with altered corazonin neuronal function. We report that corazonin transcript expression is altered under starvation and osmotic stress, and that triglyceride and dopamine levels are equally impacted in corazonin neuronal alterations and these phenotypes similarly show significant sexual dimorphisms. Notably, these sexual dimorphisms map to corazonin neurons. These results underscore the importance of central peptidergic processing within the context of stress and place corazonin signaling as a critical feature of neuroendocrine events that shape stress responses and may underlie the inherent sexual dimorphic differences in stress responses.

This work was funded by the Science Research Fund, Wake Forest University, and NSF IOS 092931 to ECJ. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. (sponsorship)

subject

diabetes and endocrinology

genetics and genomics

neuroscience

citation

2 (issue)

5 (volume)

contributor

Zhao, Yan (author)

Bretz, Colin A. (author)

Hawksworth, Shane A. (author)

Hirsh, Jay (author)

Johnson, Erik C. (author)

date

2012-08-08T20:06:16Z (accessioned)

2012-08-08T20:06:16Z (available)

2010-02 (issued)

identifier

Zhao Y, Bretz CA, Hawksworth SA, Hirsh J, Johnson EC (2010) Corazonin Neurons Function in Sexually Dimorphic Circuitry That Shape Behavioral Responses to Stress in Drosophila. PLoS ONE 5(2): e9141. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009141 (citation)

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37411 (uri)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0009141 (uri)

publisher

PLoS: Public Library of Science

source

PLoS ONE

title

Corazonin Neurons Function in Sexually Dimorphic Circuitry That Shape Behavioral Responses to Stress in Drosophila

type

Article