Skip to main content
. 2019 Sep 3;8:e47490. doi: 10.7554/eLife.47490

Figure 4. dsBgTra females perform male courtship behavior and elicit courtship responses from wild-type females.

In courtship, wild type male Blattella germanica raise their wings to display their tergal gland. When courtship is successful, wild type females feed upon the secretions of this gland prior to copulation. dsBgTra females (n = 10), wild-type females (n = 10), and wild-type males (n = 10) were exposed to an antenna clipped from a wild-type, 7 day old virgin female, and their response times in seconds were compared. (A) Nine out of ten dsBgTra females performed the stereotypical male wing-raising courtship display in response to a female antenna compared to 0/10 of wild-type females within the one minute of observation time. (B) However, dsBgTra females took longer than wild-type males to respond with the wing-raising display. Wild-type females did not respond to the stimulus throughout the duration of the one-minute observation time. (C) 5/10 dsBgTra females elicited feeding response from wild-type females after raising their wings. Wild-type females, lacking tergal glands, do not elicit a feeding response from other wild-type females.

Figure 4.

Figure 4—figure supplement 1. BgTra controls sex-specific oligosaccharide synthesis in tergal glands (A) Relative abundance of oligosaccharides in tergal glands derived from dsBgTra females (dsTra1-dsTra10) and wild-type males (wt1-wt10).

Figure 4—figure supplement 1.

Each bar represents one individual, with different compounds shown in different colors. (B) Principal components analysis on the relative proportions of different oligosaccharides in dsBgTra female and wild-type male tergal glands. These two groups sort into different parts of PCA space, indicating that although all sugars produced by wild type male tergal glands are present in tergal glands from dsBgTra females, they produce these sugars in different relative amounts. Dimension one is primarily driven by the relative abundance of a non-reducing hexose with mass 990.328.
Figure 4—figure supplement 2. BgTra controls production of sex-specific cuticular hydrocarbons.

Figure 4—figure supplement 2.

Gas chromatograms (A) and PCA (B, C) of the cuticular hydrocarbons of Blattella germanica. The peak numbers correspond to the CHCs in Supplementary file 6 and to Jurenka et al. (1989). In the score plot (B), the solid black squares represent the centroids of their respective groups. Wild-type males in solid blue circles (n = 10), wild-type females in open red circles (n = 9), dsBgTra females in green diamonds (n = 9). In the loadings plot (C), note that peak 15, which is abundant in wild-type males, pulls towards wild-type males and dsBgTra females (to the left), whereas peak 22, which is more abundant in females, pulls towards wild-type females (to the right). (D, E) Statistical analysis of the percentage representation of peak 15 (D) and peak 22 (E) in the total cuticular hydrocarbons of wild-type males, wild-type females and dsBgTra females. Peak 15 (9-, 11-, 13-, and 15-methylnonacosane), which is more common in wild-type males, was more represented in dsBgTra females than in wild-type females. Peak 22 (3,7-, 3,9-, and 3,11-dimethylnonacosane), which serves as precursor to several components of the female contact sex pheromone, was significantly under-represented in dsBgTra females compared to wild-type females. (F) Statistical analysis of the total cuticular hydrocarbons of wild-type males, wild-type females and dsBgTra females. In the box plots, the horizontal line within the box represents the median value and the box represents the 25th to 75th quantiles. Letters within each graph represent the results of Tukey’s HSD, and different letters represent statistically significant differences (p<0.05).