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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Nov 18.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2019 Oct 31;29(22):3887–3898.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.09.045

Figure 1. Group housing enhances pheromone responses of Or47b ORNs in mature males.

Figure 1.

(A, B) Effect of housing condition on pheromone responses in the Or47b neurons of 7-day old males and females. GH: group-housed, 15 flies per vial. SH: single-housed, flies were raised in isolation. (A) Sample traces (top panel), peri-stimulus time histogram (PSTH, middle panel) and spike rasters (bottom panel) of Or47b neurons in WT males and females. (B) Dosage-response curves comparing male and female flies under GH or SH conditions. Odor stimulation: 4.5 ng to 450 μg palmitoleic acid (PA). n = 17 flies per condition.

(C, D) Effect of housing density on Or47b response. WT flies were raised for 7 days either in isolation or in same-sex groups of 5 to 25 flies. n = 16 flies for males, n = 12 flies for females.

(E, F) Effect of age and housing condition on Or47b response. WT males were raised in groups of 15 or in isolation from eclosion to different ages. n = 20 flies for each condition.

(G, H) Courtship competition assay with one virgin female and two naïve males. The copulation percentages of group-housed males (♂1) are shown with the age and genotypes of the males indicated above. Chi-square test was used to determine if copulation percentage was different from chance. p-values are indicated below. Bars indicate mean copulation percentage. Dots represent results from individual experiments. n = 5 experiments per condition, 12–26 matches per experiment. Dashed line indicates chance level.

(I) Effect of 2-day group housing on Or47b pheromone response in male flies of different age. Filled bars indicate group housing. n=15 flies per condition.

Significant differences are denoted by ***, p<0.001 (B) or different letters (p<0.05) (D, F, H), determined by two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test. For (I) *, p<0.012, **, p<0.002 as determined by two-tailed unpaired t-test with Bonferroni correction. 45 μg PA was used as the odor stimulus unless specified otherwise. Data are presented as mean ±SEM. Line width in PSTH indicates SEM.

See also Figures S1–S3 and Table S1.