Dissection of gain control mechanisms in Drosophila mechanotransduction

Mechanoreceptor cells respond to a vast span of stimulus intensities, which they transduce into a limited response-range using a dynamic regulation of transduction gain. Weak stimuli are detected by enhancing the gain of responses through the process of active mechanical amplification. To preserve responsiveness, the gain of responses to prolonged activation is rapidly reduced through the process of adaptation. We investigated long-term processes of mechanotransduction gain control by studying responses from single mechanoreceptor neurons in Drosophila. We found that mechanical stimuli elicited a sustained reduction of gain that we termed long-term adaptation. Long-term adaptation and the adaptive decay of responses during stimuli had distinct kinetics and they were independently affected by manipulations of mechanotransduction. Therefore, long-term adaptation is not associated with the reduction of response gain during stimulation. Instead, the long-term adaptation suppressed canonical features of active amplification which were the high gain of weak stimuli and the spontaneous emission of noise. In addition, depressing amplification using energy deprivation recapitulated the effects of long-term adaptation. These data suggest that long-term adaptation is mediated by suppression of active amplification. Finally, the extent of long-term adaptation matched with cytoplasmic Ca(2+) levels and dTrpA1-induced Ca(2+) elevation elicited the effects of long-term adaptation. Our data suggest that mechanotransduction employs parallel adaptive mechanisms: while a rapid process exerts immediate gain reduction, long-term adjustments are achieved by attenuating active amplification. The slow adjustment of gain, manifest as diminished sensitivity, is associated with the accumulation of Ca(2+).