Tissue-specific insulin signaling mediates female sexual attractiveness.

ABSTRACT: Individuals choose their mates so as to maximize reproductive success, and one important component of this choice is assessment of traits reflecting mate quality. Little is known about why specific traits are used for mate quality assessment nor about how they reflect it. We have previously shown that global manipulation of insulin signaling, a nutrient-sensing pathway governing investment in survival versus reproduction, affects female sexual attractiveness in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Here we demonstrate that these effects on attractiveness derive from insulin signaling in the fat body and ovarian follicle cells, whose signals are integrated by pheromone-producing cells called oenocytes. Functional ovaries were required for global insulin signaling effects on attractiveness

SUBMITTER: Fedina TY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5560536 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature