摘要：SummaryRegulated metabolism is required for behaviors as adults age. To understand how lipid usage affects motor coordination, we studied maleCaenorhabditis eleganscopulation as a model of energy-intensive behavior. Copulation performance drops after 48 h of adulthood. We found that 12–24 h before behavioral decline, males prioritize exploring and copulation behavior over feeding, suggesting that catabolizing stored metabolites, such as lipids, occurs during this period. Becausefat-6/7-encoded stearoyl-CoA desaturases are essential for converting the ingested fatty acids to lipid storage, we examined the copulation behavior and neural calcium transients offat-6(lf); fat-7(lf) mutants. In wild-type males, intestinal and epithelialfat-6/7expression increases during the first 48 h of adulthood. Thefat-6(lf); fat-7(lf) behavioral and metabolic defects indicate that in aging wild-type males, the increased expression of stearoyl-CoA desaturases in the epidermis may indirectly modulate the levels of EAG-family K+channels in the reproductive cholinergic neurons and muscles.Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Tissue distribution offat-6-encoded stearoyl-CoA desaturase changes in adulthood•Markov modeling shows reduced feeding linked with more exploring in day 2 males•fat-6(lf); fat-7(lf) disrupted behavior can be rescued by epidermal FAT-6•fat-6(lf); fat-7(lf) alters neural and muscular ERG and EAG K+ channel expressionMolecular mechanism of behavior; Behavioral neuroscience; Behavioral endocrinology
