Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,234 studies31 sourcesUpdated 32 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BYScience Advances

Sensory receptor expansion and neural accommodation in butterfly color vision

  • Ke Gao1
  • Julia Ainsworth1
  • Antoine Donati1
  • Yunchong Zhao1
  • Michelle Franc Ragsac2
  • Cara Genduso3
  • Zoie Andre1
  • Andrew Tomlinson4,5
  • Michael W. Perry1
5 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
  2. 2Halicioğlu Data Science Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
  3. 3Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
  4. 4Department of Genetics and Development, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
  5. 5Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

The evolution of complex brains required the incorporation of newly evolved neurons into existing circuits, yet the genetic and developmental mechanisms enabling their integration remain poorly understood. Butterflies expanded their color vision by adding a second R7 photoreceptor per ommatidium, a rare departure from the conserved insect eye ground plan. Because each R7 makes an independent stochastic fate choice, this duplication increased the number of ommatidial types from two to three. We identified the genetic basis of this expansion and demonstrated how the brain accommodates the new input. R7 duplication was achieved by converting R3/4 cells to an R1/6 fate, triggering the R7 recruitment program on both sides of the ommatidium. By manipulating transcription factor expression in Drosophila, we engineered a "butterfly-fly" that recapitulates this ancient R7 duplication and three-type stochastic mosaic. In the fly brain, two R7 subtypes connect to specific types of Dm8 neurons, which are born in excess and undergo apoptosis if they fail to find synaptic partners. In our butterfly-fly model, these surplus Dm8s are immediately rescued and form subtype-appropriate connections. These findings suggest that population-level variation maintains a reservoir of potentially interacting neurons, providing a developmental substrate that allows the brain to immediately accommodate newly evolved neurons.

Related

  1. Neural mechanisms for resilient sensory computation under metabolic stress
    S. H. Castedo, Z. Padamsey, N. L. Rochefort +1
    bioRxivPreprintCC BYFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  2. Flexible compression of sensory evidence makes human decisions more resilient to noisy neural computations
    Julie Drevet, Lucas Benjamin, Lindsay Rondot +2
    bioRxivPreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textNeurosciencebioRxivPMC
  3. Neural effects of expectation violation generalise across sensory modalities
    Dragan Rangelov, Edwina Shi, Jason B. Mattingley
    Communications BiologyPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textGeneral biologyDOAJ
  4. replicateFest: an R package and shiny app for analysis of T cell receptor repertoire data from the functional expansion.
    Ludmila Danilova, Alexander V Favorov, Kellie N Smith +1
    Frontiers in immunologyPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textImmunologyEurope PMCCrossref
  5. Cell size asymmetry regulates neural stem cell proliferation and lineage expansion in the Drosophila brain
    Melissa K. Delgado, J Ian Hertzler, Sophia Jannetty +8
    Cell ReportsPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0General biologyCrossref

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{gao2026sensory,
  title = {{Sensory receptor expansion and neural accommodation in butterfly color vision}},
  author = {Ke Gao and Julia Ainsworth and Antoine Donati and Yunchong Zhao and Michelle Franc Ragsac and Cara Genduso and Zoie Andre and Andrew Tomlinson and Michael W. Perry},
  journal = {Science Advances},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aei7570},
  url = {https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aei7570},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Sensory receptor expansion and neural accommodation in butterfly color vision
AU  - Ke Gao
AU  - Julia Ainsworth
AU  - Antoine Donati
AU  - Yunchong Zhao
AU  - Michelle Franc Ragsac
AU  - Cara Genduso
AU  - Zoie Andre
AU  - Andrew Tomlinson
AU  - Michael W. Perry
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/07
JO  - Science Advances
DO  - 10.1126/sciadv.aei7570
UR  - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aei7570
AB  - The evolution of complex brains required the incorporation of newly evolved neurons into existing circuits, yet the genetic and developmental mechanisms enabling their integration remain poorly understood. Butterflies expanded their color vision by adding a second R7 photoreceptor per ommatidium, a rare departure from the conserved insect eye ground plan. Because each R7 makes an independent stochastic fate choice, this duplication increased the number of ommatidial types from two to three. We identified the genetic basis of this expansion and demonstrated how the brain accommodates the new input. R7 duplication was achieved by converting R3/4 cells to an R1/6 fate, triggering the R7 recruitment program on both sides of the ommatidium. By manipulating transcription factor expression in Drosophila, we engineered a "butterfly-fly" that recapitulates this ancient R7 duplication and three-type stochastic mosaic. In the fly brain, two R7 subtypes connect to specific types of Dm8 neurons, which are born in excess and undergo apoptosis if they fail to find synaptic partners. In our butterfly-fly model, these surplus Dm8s are immediately rescued and form subtype-appropriate connections. These findings suggest that population-level variation maintains a reservoir of potentially interacting neurons, providing a developmental substrate that allows the brain to immediately accommodate newly evolved neurons.
SN  - 2375-2548
ER  -