Abnormalities of Male-Specific FRU Protein and Serotonin Expression
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The Journal of Neuroscience, January 15, 2001, 21(2):513–526 Abnormalities of Male-Specific FRU Protein and Serotonin Expression in the CNS of fruitless Mutants in Drosophila Gyunghee Lee and Jeffrey C. Hall Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454 The fruitless gene in Drosophila produces male-specific protein include courtship among males, which has been hypothesized (FRU M) involved in the control of courtship. FRU M spatial and to involve anomalies of serotonin (5-HT) function in the brain. temporal patterns were examined in fru mutants that exhibit However, double-labeling uncovered no coexpression of FRU M aberrant male courtship. Chromosome breakpoints at the locus and 5-HT in brain neurons. Yet, a newly identified set of sexually eliminated FRU M. Homozygous viable mutants exhibited an dimorphic FRU M/5-HT-positive neurons was identified in the intriguing array of defects. In fru 1 males, there were absences abdominal ganglion of adult males. These sexually dimorphic of FRU M-expressing neuronal clusters or stained cells within neurons (s-Abg) project toward regions of the abdomen in- certain clusters, reductions of signal intensities in others, and volved in male reproduction. The s-Abg neurons and the prox- ectopic FRU M expression in novel cells. fru 2 males exhibited an imal extents of their axons were unstained or absent in wild-type overall decrement of FRU M expression in all neurons normally females and exhibited subnormal or no 5-HT immunoreactivity in expressing the gene. fru 4 and fru sat mutants only produced certain fru-mutant males, indicating that fruitless controls the for- FRU M in small numbers of neurons at extremely low levels, and mation of these cells or 5-HT production in them. no FRU M signals were detected in fru 3 males. This array of Key words: fruitless transposons; chromosome aberrations; abnormalities was inferred to correlate with the varying behav- brain neurons; ventral nerve cord; sexual dimorphism; seroto- ioral defects exhibited by these mutants. Such abnormalities nergic neurons Courtship in Drosophila melanogaster is regulated by a somatic behavior caused by fru mutations could be understood in terms of sex-determination hierarchy. One of the “downstream” genes where FRU M is expressed in the CNS (or not expressed, as the functioning within this hierarchy is fruitless (for review, see case may be) in a given mutant. Goodwin, 1999; Yamamoto and Nakano, 1999). fru mutations The fact that several fru-mutant types court other males might cause the most sharply defined effects on male courtship, com- be attributable to subnormal levels of serotonin (5-HT) in rele- pared with behaviorally mutant phenotypes associated with other vant brain cells. This hypothesis suggested itself because of the downstream genes (Villella and Hall, 1996; Finley et al., 1997). anomalous inter-male courtships that are induced by ectopic ϩ fruitless produces male- and female-specific transcripts under the expression of the white (w ) gene (Zhang and Odenwald, 1995; control of a distal promoter (P1) located ϳ100 kb from the bulk Hing and Carlson, 1996). white encodes a tryptophan–guanine of the open reading frame of the gene (Ryner et al., 1996). The transporter; because tryptophan is a precursor of 5-HT, induced M ϩ male-specific proteins (FRU s) encoded by P1-controlled mR- w expression all over the brain could cause subnormal 5-HT NAs are likely to be involved in the regulation of courtship or the levels in neurons that normally produce it. Drug-induced 5-HT development of the neural substrates for male reproductive be- reductions can induce homosexual behavior of male mammals havior (Goodwin 1999). In females, P1-produced transcripts are (for review, see Gessa and Tagliamonte, 1974; Fratta et al., 1977). not translated into detectable FRU protein (Lee et al., 2000; fru mutants, which are predicted to exhibit deficits in male- Usui-Aoki et al., 2000). specific transcription factors encoded by this gene (Goodwin, One approach toward understanding how fru regulates male 1999; Goodwin et al., 2000), could also be deficient in 5-HT if its M courtship is to compare patterns of FRU expression in the CNS production is downstream of FRU M function. Moreover, the ϩ of various fruitless mutants that display behavioral phenotypes actions of both ectopic-w and fruitless have been suggested to be ranging from mildly to severely defective (Villella et al., 1997; in the same pathway because of a blockade of the behavioral effects ϩ Goodwin et al., 2000). The courtship subnormalities and bisexual of ectopic-w by a frumutation that, by itself, causes very low levels Received May 18, 2000; revised Oct. 3, 2000; accepted Oct. 30, 2000. of male courtship (Nilsson et al., 2000). Based on these suppositions, This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grants NS-33352 we analyzed the relationship between the spatial distribution of and GM-21473, and NIH Neuroscience Training Grant 5T32-NS-07292. We thank 5-HT and fru gene products in normal and mutant CNSs. Jae H. Park, Adriana Villella, Stephen F. Goodwin, Jean-Christophe Billeter, Bruce Along with demonstrating that elements of 5-HT production S. Baker, and Barbara J. Taylor for helpful discussions, and we appreciate comments on this manuscript from Barbara J. Taylor, Margit Foss, and Ralph J. Greenspan. We are downstream of fru functioning (although not in CNS regions thank Edward Dougherty and Maki Kaneko for confocal and photographic assis- that one might have expected), this feature of the study provided tance, and Barbara Beltz and Kalpana White for advice about anti-5-HT M immunohistochemistry. the first information on axonal projections of certain FRU cells. Correspondence should be addressed to Jeffrey C. Hall, Department of Biology, Assessing the subcellular localization of FRU M alone gives no MS-008, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454-9110. E-mail: [email protected]. insight into this matter; FRU immunoreactivities are nuclear Dr. Lee’s present address: Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molec- ular Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0840. (Lee et al., 2000), consistent with the supposition that these Copyright © 2001 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/01/210513-14$15.00/0 proteins are gene regulators. 514 J. Neurosci., January 15, 2001, 21(2):513–526 Lee and Hall • FRUM and 5-HT Abnormalities in fruitless Courtship Mutants MATERIALS AND METHODS CNSs dissected from 1-d-old Df-fru 4–40/Df-sat 15 or Df-Cha M5/Df-sat 15 (double-deletion) male pupae. The particular probe (called P1.S1; see Strains and culturing. Stocks and progeny from crosses of D. melanogaster Fig. 1) and the labeling procedures were as described in Lee et al. (2000). were reared in 12 hr light/dark (LD) cycles at 25°C, 70% relative Scoring of staining intensities. To analyze the levels of FRU M in CNSs humidity, on a sucrose–cornmeal–yeast medium containing the mold of viable fru mutants and wild-type males, fluorescently immunostained inhibitor Tegosept. A Canton-S strain was used as the wild-type control. signals from various FRU M-expressing neuronal clusters in whole- The fruitless mutant stocks fru1, fru2, fru3, fru4, and frusat were mounted CNS were quantified as described in Lee et al. (2000). We maintained as described in Villella et al. (1997) and Goodwin et al. focused on three such clusters within the superior protocerebrum in (2000). The following homozygous-lethal fru variants, missing all or analyzing the wild type and the fru mutants. These and other FRU M cell part of the locus, were combined in pairwise crosses (see Table 1): M5 sat15 w24 groups had staining intensities assessed for animals carrying the various Df(3R)Cha , Df(3R)P14, Df(3R)fru , Df(3R)fru , and fru genotypes (see Table 2 legend). The FRU M immunostaining quan- Df(3R)fru 4–40 (Gailey and Hall, 1989; Ito et al., 1996; Ryner et al., 1996; M5 tifications were performed on whole-mounted brains dissected from Anand et al., 2001). These deletions will be referred to as Df-Cha , 2-d-old pupae, which show the highest level of CNS expression by this Df-P14, Df-sat 15, Df-fru w24, and Df-fru 4–40. The lethal variants fruw12 and w27 protein (Lee et al., 2000), and from 4- to 7-d-old adults, which are active fru , each carrying single breakpoints within the locus, were crossed to courters. The specimens to be compared (in terms of genotype or each other or to certain Df-bearing flies to generate severely lesioned life-cycle stage) were processed simultaneously to minimize signal vari- genotypes (see Table 1). The Df-fru or fru-lethal stocks were balanced with ations that could occur for nonsubstantive reasons. At least five CNSs In(3LR)TM6B, Tb, In(3LR)TM3, Sb,orTp(3)MKRS, Sb. were sampled from animals of each genotype at both of the different To obtain 2-d-old pupae homozygous for a fru mutation or carrying a stages. The dorsoanterior brain region that contains both neuronal clus- given transheterozygous combination, flies from TM6B-balanced stocks ters was imaged at 100ϫ magnification by confocal microscopy (2 or 4 m were crossed to each other. This was necessary because of the homozy- optical sections). Staining intensities for nuclei of cells within these two gous lethality or sterility associated with fru variants, with the exception clusters were obtained (as pixel values) from at least five individual 2 of fru , which is homozygous-viable and fertile (permitting pupae to be brains by applying an Adobe PhotoShop (3.0) tool called Histogram. obtained from a true-breeding stock). For the other strains, balancer- This permitted an average value to be computed from several strongly over-fru heterozygotes were crossed, and animals not expressing the stained nuclei in the cells of the two nearby clusters; for a given brain, pupal marker Tb were selected.