Female insects possess a complex chemosensory system that enables them to identify optimal oviposition substrates for their developing offspring. Both calorie-rich and protein-rich substrates are particularly attractive for laying eggs. We hypothesize that females detect concentrations of sweet compounds and preferentially select those concentrations that enhance larval survival. To test this, we investigated how female Drosophila melanogaster evaluate substrates with varying concentrations of sugars and amino acids, and whether these preferences correlate with larval survival. Using choice assays, we found that females preferentially deposited eggs on substrates containing 0.1 mol/L sucrose, while higher concentrations (2 mol/L) were consistently avoided—a response not attributable to differences in substrate hardness or prior feeding experience during mating. In contrast, when presented with monosaccharides, females favored intermediate concentrations: 0.5 mol/L for both glucose and fructose, with a marked overall preference for fructose even when combined with an amino acid mixture. Moreover, substrates aligning with the females’ oviposition choices often supported best survival of larvae. These findings indicate that female flies assess not only the concentration but might also consider the chemical nature of sweet compounds when making oviposition decisions and they underscore a critical link between maternal site selection and larval development.

The impact of social interaction on physiology and behaviour has been widely studied in social insects, but less so in non-eusocial insects. Group hou…

Scientific Reports - Artificial sweeteners differentially activate sweet and bitter gustatory neurons in Drosophila

While much attention has been given to catalogue the taxonomic diversity intrinsic to host-associated microbiomes, much less is known about the functional consequences of this variation, especially in...

It has long been known that phosgene, a war gas and an industrial reagent, causes intense oxidative stress, but how it does so remains unclear. Here w…

The gut microbiome has emerged as a key factor influencing a wide range of host physiological processes and behaviors, though the mechanisms behind...

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a well characterized endocrine disruptor that interferes with the activity of a variety of nuclear receptors. For this reason, BP…

Burgmer et al. show that the pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) PGRP-LC and PGRP-LE repress key metabolic functions in the Drosophila midgut. These regulations occur independently of canonical immun...

Abstract. Retrotransposons, multi-copy sequences that propagate via copy-and-paste mechanisms, occupy large portions of eukaryotic genomes. A great majorit

Summary: Identification and characterization of miR-137 as a post-transcriptional regulator of Myc that controls growth, offering insights into diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and cancer,...

Transposons are parasitic elements prevalent across nearly all species. Here, Shen et al. tracked the dynamics of a unique retrotransposon in live ovaries, showing that upon activation, this retrotran...

Abstract. Retrotransposons, multi-copy sequences that propagate via copy-and-paste mechanisms, occupy large portions of eukaryotic genomes. A great majorit

Summary: Identification and characterization of miR-137 as a post-transcriptional regulator of Myc that controls growth, offering insights into diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and cancer,...

Abstract. Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive sequences capable of mobilizing within genomes, exerting a significant influence on evolution througho

Transposons are parasitic elements prevalent across nearly all species. Here, Shen et al. tracked the dynamics of a unique retrotransposon in live ovaries, showing that upon activation, this retrotran...

Abstract In addition to participating in dosage compensation, the MLE helicase in D. melanogaster performs many functions in the regulation of gene expression, as does its human ortholog DHX9. Many of these functions are evolutionarily conserved and poorly explored. MLE has previously been shown to be involved in the regulation of inducible transcription of the ftz-f1 gene encoding the evolutionarily conserved nuclear receptor NR5A3. The ftz-f1 gene also encodes a constitutive transcript synthesized from an alternative promoter. The present work is devoted to the investigation of the role of MLE in the regulation of constitutive transcription of the ftz-f1 gene. This work shows that in S2 cell culture, MLE binds to the constitutive promoter and controls both inducible and constitutive transcription of the ftz-f1 gene. A novel MLE-binding cis-regulatory element of the ftz-f1 gene, enhancer 663, was identified. Using chromosome conformation capture technique the interaction of enhancer 663 with constitutive and inducible promoters of ftz-f1 gene in S2 cell culture was demonstrated. Examination of enhancer 663 histone H3 acetylation showed that it is involved in the activity of both promoters. Knockdown of MLE in S2 cell culture causes an increase in constitutive transcription. The effect of MLE on transcription beyond dosage compensation in vivo at the adult stage was shown for the first time. It was shown that at the adult stage MLE binds to both inducible and constitutive promoters and to enhancer 663. Mutation in the mle gene leads to increased expression of both transcripts of the ftz-f1 gene in females. The data obtained are important for understanding and further study of the evolutionarily conserved functions of MLE and its human ortholog DHX9.

Lancaster et al. show uniform thickening of a curved epithelium, such as the developing Drosophila retina, is achieved through the coordination of oriented cell growth, which promotes cell elongation,...

When a cell receives multiple developmental signals simultaneously, the intracellular transduction pathways triggered by those signals are coincidenta…