Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 30: Posters - Neurosciences

BP 30.2: Poster

Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-OG1

Mechanotransduction in the pentamere chordotonal organ of the Drosophila larva — •Achintya Prahlad¹, Christian Spalthoff², Ben Warren², Deqing Kong³, Jörg Großhans³, Martin Göpfert², and Christoph Schmidt¹ — ¹Third Institute of Physics, Georg August University, Göttingen — ²Schwann-Schleiden Research Centre, Georg August University, Göttingen — ³Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, University Medical Centre, Göttingen

Chordotonal organs perform mechanosensory functions across diverse insect species. How these organs transduce mechanical stimuli is so far unknown. Our organ of interest is the lch5 organ, which plays a key role in coordinating locomotion in the Drosophila larva. This organ consists of neurons and accessory cells. We applied tension to the whole organ in situ by transverse deflection. Upon release, the organ displays overdamped relaxation with two widely separated time constants, a rapid snap-back followed by a slow relaxation. When the muscles covering the lch5 organ were excised, the slow relaxation was absent and the fast time constant was faster. Most of the strain in the stretched organ is localized in the cap cells, which account for 66% of the length of the entire organ, and could be stretched to increase the length by ~10% without apparent damage. In laser ablation experiments we found that cap cells severed from the neurons retracted over 100 microns indicating considerable stress and strain in these cells. Given that myosins are abundant in the cap cells, the results point to a mechanical regulatory role of the cap cells in the lch5 organ.