Alternative strategies based on transgenic Drosophila melanogaster for the functional characterization of insect Ionotropic Receptors.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Insect Ionotropic Receptors (IRs) are a relatively uncharted territory. Some studies have documented IR activation by recording neuronal activity in situ, others by their heterologous expression in Xenopus oocytes or mis-expressing IRs from Drosophila melanogaster or from the related D. sechellia into the D. melanogaster "ionotropic receptor decoder" neuron, which lacks the endogenous tuning receptor subunit but expresses IR-coreceptors.

Results

In this study, we first made use of Drosophila olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) different from the "ionotropic receptor decoder", demonstrating that by replacing or introducing IRs alongside the native D. melanogaster ones, functional heteromeric complexes can be formed. IR41a1 from the lepidopteran Cydia pomonella exhibit

SUBMITTER: Crava CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12147327 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature