Fruitfly larvae need to sense odours to maintain a pool of the cells that give rise to blood cells.
A team led by Utpal Banerjee at the University of California, Los Angeles, studied mutants of Drosophila melanogaster to identify molecular signals connecting odour sensing to blood progenitor cells. They found that smells prevent the cells from specializing, or differentiating, before they are required.
When the team activated olfactory neurons in the fly's brain, the neurons secreted a chemical called GABA into the blood, triggering blood progenitors to let in calcium ions. Calcium maintains the cells as undifferentiated progenitors. Larvae raised in environments with few odours had low levels of GABA, and their blood progenitor cells differentiated earlier.
Whether similar links exist between sensory perception and progenitor cells in more complex organisms is not clear.
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Smells maintain blood cells. Nature 503, 441 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/503441c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/503441c
