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Nitric oxide acts as a cotransmitter in a subset of dopaminergic neurons to diversify memory dynamics
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Abstract
Animals employ diverse learning rules and synaptic plasticity dynamics to record temporal and statistical information about the world. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this diversity are poorly understood. The anatomically defined compartments of the insect mushroom body function as parallel units of associative learning, with different learning rates, memory decay dynamics and flexibility (Aso and Rubin, 2016). Here, we show that nitric oxide (NO) acts as a neurotransmitter in a subset of dopaminergic neurons in Drosophila . NO’s effects develop more slowly than those of dopamine and depend on soluble guanylate cyclase in postsynaptic Kenyon cells. NO acts antagonistically to dopamine; it shortens memory retention and facilitates the rapid updating of memories. The interplay of NO and dopamine enables memories stored in local domains along Kenyon cell axons to be specialized for predicting the value of odors based only on recent events. Our results provide key mechanistic insights into how diverse memory dynamics are established in parallel memory systems.
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![Figure 1. Dopaminergic neurons can induce memories without dopamine, but with opposite valence. (A) Conceptual diagram of the circuit organization in the MB lobes. Sparse activity in the parallel axonal fibers of the KCs represent odor stimuli. DANs induce plasticity at KC to MBON synapses (represented by circles), when DAN and KC activity are coincident (red circles). The MB compartments (indicated by the colored rectangles) differ in their learning and memory decay rates. The actual MB lobes contains 15 compartments (Tanaka et al., 2008). (B) Design of the optogenetic olfactory arena and a diagram illustrating odor paths in the arena. (C) Schematic representation of the innervation patterns of the PPL1 (blue; R52H03-p65ADZp; TH-ZpGAL4DBD) and PAM cluster (orange; R58E02-p65ADZp; DDC-ZpGAL4DBD) DANs used to train flies. A diagram of the training protocol is also shown. Flies were trained and tested in the olfactory area. A 1 min odor exposure was paired with thirty 1 s pulses of red light (627 nm peak and 34.9 µW/mm2), followed by 1 min without odor or red light, and then presentation of a second odor for 1 min without red light. In one group of flies, odors A and B were 3-octanol and 4-methylcyclohexanol, respectively, while in a second group of flies, the odors were reversed. Memory was tested immediately after three repetitions of training bouts by giving flies a binary choice between the two odors in the olfactory area. (D–G) Odor memories induced by the collective optogenetic activation of PPL1-γ1pedc, PPL1-γ2α'1, PPL1-α'2α2 and PPL1-α3 DANs (upper panels; blue lines) or activation of PAM cluster DANs (lower panels; orange lines) in wild type (D), TH mutant (E), TH mutant feed 1 mg/ml L-DOPA and 0.1 mg/ml carbidopa (F), or TH mutant with cell-type specific expression of a wild-type TH cDNA (G; see the Materials and methods for drug treatment and supplemental information for genotypes). Time courses of the performance index (PI) during the test period are shown as the average of reciprocal experiments. The PI is defined as [(number of flies in the odor A quadrants) - (number of flies in odor B quadrants)]/ (total number of flies). Thick line and shading represent mean ± SEM. N = 12–16. Two split-GAL4 drivers R52H03-p65ADZp in attP40; TH-ZpGAL4DBD in VK00027 and R58E02-p65ADZp in attP40; DDC-ZpGAL4DBD in VK00027 were used for driving 20xUAS-CsChrimon-mVenus in PPL1 or PAM DANs, respectively.](/paper-figures/63fd1cb0dc78489d83cbd4ad4e10574a/nitric-oxide-acts-as-a-cotransmitter-in-a-subset-of-dopaminergic-neurons-to-figure-1.jpg)


















![Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Expression of Gycbeta100B in the mushroom body lobes (A) Distribution of Gycbeta100B-EGFP in flies carrying the Gycbeta100B[MI08892-GFSTF.2] construct in the MB lobes is shown in a series of anterior to posterior confocal sections. Right panels show images of wild-type fly, which did not contain the Gycbeta100B-EGFP insertion, prepared with the identical immunolabelling procedure. (B–D) Gycbeta100B-EGFP signals in the γ1 (B) were markedly reduced with induction of Gycβ100B-shRNA HMJ22589 (C) or another RNAi line KK100706 (Dietzl et al., 2007) (D) in Kenyon cells. (E–F) We detected enhanced induction of reporters by MB-switch after feeding RU486 with low but significant basal expression without RU486 feeding.](/paper-figures/674bf34307554d249f84c26c2f62de92/nitric-oxide-acts-as-a-cotransmitter-in-a-subset-of-dopaminergic-neurons-to-figure-20.jpg)









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“Co-transmission of a fast-acting transmitter and a neuropeptide was more common, e.g., Kenyon cells (at least acetylcholine, sparkly and short neuropeptide F),21,25,55,164 the dorsal paired medial (DPM) neuron (GABA, serotonin, sparkly, nplp1, proctolin, orcokinin, eclosion hormone, CG34136)25,56,60 and most central complex, mushroom body output and mushroom body dopaminergic neurons.25,157”
From Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster (2024) · cites this paper as [25]
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“Nitric oxide is used as a co-transmitter,25 we did not include it in our dataset.”
From Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster (2024) · cites this paper as [25]
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“DPM has been found to express the fast-acting transmitter GABA the monoamine serotonin and several neuropeptides (sparkly, nplp1, proctolin, orcokinin, eclosion hormone, CG34136).25,56,60”
From Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster (2024) · cites this paper as [25]
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“Kenyon cells may also express the neuropeptide sparkly.25,174”
From Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster (2024) · cites this paper as [25]
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Self-citationThe connectome of the adult Drosophila mushroom body provides insights into function
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Metadata
- Authors
- Aso, Y., Ray, R. P., Long, X., Bushey, D., Cichewicz, K., Ngo, T.-T., Sharp, B., Christoforou, C., Hu, A., Lemire, A. L., Tillberg, P., Hirsh, J., Litwin-Kumar, A., & Rubin, G. M.
- Affiliations
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- University of Virginia (US)
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Aso, Yoshinori
- Rubin, Gerald M
- ORCID
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2019-11-14
- Volume
- 8
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6948953
- OpenAlex
- W2987761357
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 148
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 19
- FWCI
- 6.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2020-10-22)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- National Institutes of Health (R01 GM84128)
- Simons Foundation (Global Brain)
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- Gatsby Charitable Foundation
- National Science Foundation (DBI-1707398)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- nitric oxide, co-transmitter, dopaminergic neurons, mushroom body, Kenyon cells, soluble guanylate cyclase, dopamine, memory dynamics, associative learning, memory updating, memory decay, parallel memory systems, Drosophila, odor prediction
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Dopamine, Drosophila melanogaster, Learning, Memory, Nitric Oxide, Odorants, Smell, Neurotransmitter Agents, Mushroom Bodies, Drosophila Proteins, Dopaminergic Neurons
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