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Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot

Behavioral sex differences primarily derive from the sexually dimorphic organization of neural circuits that direct the behavior. In Drosophila melanogaster, the sex-determination genes fruitless (fru) and doublesex (dsx) play pivotal roles in producing the sexual dimorphism of neural circuits for b...

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Autores principales: Sato, Kosei, Yamamoto, Daisuke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10622783/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37928065
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2023.1284367
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author Sato, Kosei
Yamamoto, Daisuke
author_facet Sato, Kosei
Yamamoto, Daisuke
author_sort Sato, Kosei
collection PubMed
description Behavioral sex differences primarily derive from the sexually dimorphic organization of neural circuits that direct the behavior. In Drosophila melanogaster, the sex-determination genes fruitless (fru) and doublesex (dsx) play pivotal roles in producing the sexual dimorphism of neural circuits for behavior. Here we examine three neural groups expressing fru and/or dsx, i.e., the P1 cluster, aSP-f and aSP-g cluster pairs and aDN cluster, in which causal relationships between the dimorphic behavior and dimorphic neural characteristics are best illustrated. aSP-f, aSP-g and aDN clusters represent examples where fru or dsx switches cell-autonomously their neurite structures between the female-type and male-type. Processed sensory inputs impinging on these neurons may result in outputs that encode different valences, which culminate in the execution of distinct behavior according to the sex. In contrast, the P1 cluster is male-specific as its female counterpart undergoes dsx-driven cell death, which lowers the threshold for the induction of male-specific behaviors. We propose that the products of fru and dsx genes, as terminal selectors in sexually dimorphic neuronal wiring, induce and maintain the sex-typical chromatin state at postembryonic stages, orchestrating the transcription of effector genes that shape single neuron structures and govern cell survival and death.
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spelling pubmed-106227832023-11-04 Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot Sato, Kosei Yamamoto, Daisuke Front Mol Neurosci Molecular Neuroscience Behavioral sex differences primarily derive from the sexually dimorphic organization of neural circuits that direct the behavior. In Drosophila melanogaster, the sex-determination genes fruitless (fru) and doublesex (dsx) play pivotal roles in producing the sexual dimorphism of neural circuits for behavior. Here we examine three neural groups expressing fru and/or dsx, i.e., the P1 cluster, aSP-f and aSP-g cluster pairs and aDN cluster, in which causal relationships between the dimorphic behavior and dimorphic neural characteristics are best illustrated. aSP-f, aSP-g and aDN clusters represent examples where fru or dsx switches cell-autonomously their neurite structures between the female-type and male-type. Processed sensory inputs impinging on these neurons may result in outputs that encode different valences, which culminate in the execution of distinct behavior according to the sex. In contrast, the P1 cluster is male-specific as its female counterpart undergoes dsx-driven cell death, which lowers the threshold for the induction of male-specific behaviors. We propose that the products of fru and dsx genes, as terminal selectors in sexually dimorphic neuronal wiring, induce and maintain the sex-typical chromatin state at postembryonic stages, orchestrating the transcription of effector genes that shape single neuron structures and govern cell survival and death. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC10622783/ /pubmed/37928065 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2023.1284367 Text en Copyright © 2023 Sato and Yamamoto. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Molecular Neuroscience
Sato, Kosei
Yamamoto, Daisuke
Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title_full Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title_fullStr Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title_full_unstemmed Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title_short Molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
title_sort molecular and cellular origins of behavioral sex differences: a tiny little fly tells a lot
topic Molecular Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10622783/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37928065
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2023.1284367
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