Fig. 6: Nutritional stress in females extends EHP duration and enhances venerose absorption by increasing the Dh44 pool available for venerose-induced secretion.

a Relative ³²P levels in whole female bodies of females under the indicated feeding conditions before mating with ³²P-labeled CS males. Females were examined 4 h post-mating, by which time all females had completed expulsion of the male ejaculate. Each dot represents the relative ³²P level of a tissue sample from 3 flies. b Normalized EHP (ΔEHP) from w¹¹¹⁸ females under the indicated feeding conditions before mating with a male of the indicated genotypes. The EHP was normalized by subtracting the EHP from females under the indicated conditions by the mean of the reference EHPs (leftmost column). c Number of sperm stored in the seminal receptacles of well-nourished or starved females before mating with a male of the indicated genotypes. d Heatmap images (left) and normalized anti-Dh44 immunoreactivity of Dh44-PI neurons from w¹¹¹⁸ females of the indicated nutritional and mating status stained with anti-Dh44 antibody. Increasing Dh44 levels are indicated by blue, green, yellow, and red, in order. Quantified immunoreactivity of somas (outlined in white in the left panel). V indicates virgin females. Circles indicate the normalized anti-Dh44 fluorescence intensities from individual females. Scale bars, 10 µm. Images are Z-projections with averaged intensity. e, f Left, normalized anti-Dh44 immunoreactivity from virgin females of the indicated genotypes stained with anti-Dh44 antibody. Quantified soma immunoreactivity. Circles indicate the normalized anti-Dh44 fluorescence intensity of individual females. Right, normalized EHP (ΔEHP) from females under the indicated conditions mated with CS males. Circles indicate ΔEHP measured from individual females. ATR indicates females fed all-trans-retinal. The schematics above the graphs illustrate each experimental protocol. Data are shown as means ± SEM. The numbers in parentheses indicate n. One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post-hoc analysis (b, c). Unpaired two-tailed t-tests (a, d–f). The numbers above the columns are p-values (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001). Exact p-values are in Supplementary Data 4. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. g A model explaining energy-state dependent EHP extension and venerose absorption (see Result).