Dinges, Gesa F;
Bockemühl, Till;
Iacoviello, Francesco;
Shearing, Paul R;
Büschges, Ansgar;
Blanke, Alexander;
(2022)
Ultra high-resolution biomechanics suggest that substructures within insect mechanosensors decisively affect their sensitivity.
Journal of the Royal Society. Interface
, 19
(190)
, Article 20220102. 10.1098/rsif.2022.0102.
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Abstract
Insect load sensors, called campaniform sensilla (CS), measure strain changes within the cuticle of appendages. This mechanotransduction provides the neuromuscular system with feedback for posture and locomotion. Owing to their diverse morphology and arrangement, CS can encode different strain directions. We used nano-computed tomography and finite-element analysis to investigate how different CS morphologies within one location-the femoral CS field of the leg in the fruit fly Drosophila-interact under load. By investigating the influence of CS substructures' material properties during simulated limb displacement with naturalistic forces, we could show that CS substructures (i.e. socket and collar) influence strain distribution throughout the whole CS field. Altered socket and collar elastic moduli resulted in 5% relative differences in displacement, and the artificial removal of all sockets caused differences greater than 20% in cap displacement. Apparently, CS sockets support the distribution of distal strain to more proximal CS, while collars alter CS displacement more locally. Harder sockets can increase or decrease CS displacement depending on sensor location. Furthermore, high-resolution imaging revealed that sockets are interconnected in subcuticular rows. In summary, the sensitivity of individual CS is dependent on the configuration of other CS and their substructures.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ultra high-resolution biomechanics suggest that substructures within insect mechanosensors decisively affect their sensitivity |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rsif.2022.0102 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.0102 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | Drosophila melanogaster, campaniform sensilla, finite-element analysis, load sensors, principal component analysis, strain, Animals, Biomechanical Phenomena, Biophysics, Insecta, Mechanotransduction, Cellular, Sensilla |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10148185 |
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