Search results for "Drosophila melanogaster"
showing 10 items of 426 documents
Peripheral, central and behavioral responses to the cuticular pheromone bouquet in Drosophila melanogaster males.
2011
International audience; Pheromonal communication is crucial with regard to mate choice in many animals including insects. Drosophila melanogaster flies produce a pheromonal bouquet with many cuticular hydrocarbons some of which diverge between the sexes and differently affect male courtship behavior. Cuticular pheromones have a relatively high weight and are thought to be -- mostly but not only -- detected by gustatory contact. However, the response of the peripheral and central gustatory systems to these substances remains poorly explored. We measured the effect induced by pheromonal cuticular mixtures on (i) the electrophysiological response of peripheral gustatory receptor neurons, (ii) …
An olfactory receptor for food-derived odours promotes male courtship in Drosophila.
2011
International audience; Many animals attract mating partners through the release of volatile sex pheromones, which can convey information on the species, gender and receptivity of the sender to induce innate courtship and mating behaviours by the receiver. Male Drosophila melanogaster fruitflies display stereotyped reproductive behaviours towards females, and these behaviours are controlled by the neural circuitry expressing male-specific isoforms of the transcription factor Fruitless (FRU(M)). However, the volatile pheromone ligands, receptors and olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) that promote male courtship have not been identified in this important model organism. Here we describe a novel…
Mapping of genetic loci that change pheromone discrimination in Drosophila males
2002
0016-6723 (Print) Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Reproduction in individual animals of sexual species depends largely upon their ability to detect and distinguish specific signal(s) among those produced by various potential sexual partners. In Drosophila melanogaster males, there is a natural polymorphism for discrimination of female and male principal pheromones that segregates with chromosome 3. We have mapped two loci on chromosome 3 that change sex-pheromone discrimination in males. We successively exploited meiotic recombination, deficiencies and enhancer-trap strains; excision of the transposon in two selected enhancer-trap strains clearly reverted…
Sequence variation in couch potato and its effects on life-history traits in a northern malt fly, Drosophila montana
2011
Abstract Couch potato ( cpo ) has previously been connected to reproductive diapause in several insect species including Drosophila melanogaster , where it has been suggested to provide a link between the insulin signalling pathway and the hormonal control of diapause. In the first part of the study we sequenced nearly 3.6 kb of this gene in a northern Drosophila species ( Drosophila montana ) with a robust photoperiodically determined diapause and found several types of polymorphisms along the sequenced area. We also found variation among five Drosophila virilis group species in the length of the 5th exon of cpo and in the site of the stop codon at the end of this exon. The second part of …
Myo-inositol as a main metabolite in overwintering flies: seasonal metabolomic profiles and cold stress tolerance in a northern drosophilid fly
2012
SUMMARY Coping with seasonal changes in temperature is an important factor underlying the ability of insects to survive over the harsh winter conditions in the northern temperate zone, and only a few drosophilids have been able to colonize sub-polar habitats. Information on their winter physiology is needed as it may shed light on the adaptive mechanisms of overwintering when compared with abundant data on the thermal physiology of more southern species, such as Drosophila melanogaster. Here we report the first seasonal metabolite analysis in a Drosophila species. We traced changes in the cold tolerance and metabolomic profiles in adult Drosophila montana flies that were exposed to thermope…
Species-specific effects of single sensillum ablation on mating position in Drosophila.
2003
0022-0949 (Print) Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Dipteran insects show a wide range of species-specific mating positions. Interspecific transitions from one position to another may reflect sexual or natural selection, or be pleiotropic consequences of other genetic changes. Like many cyclorrhaphan flies, Drosophila species mate with the male on the back of the female, positioned centrally. Mechanosensory sensilla on the male genitalia of three species of the melanogaster species sub-group of Drosophila have species-specific effects on mating position and on courtship success: ablation of a single pair of bristles on the genital claspers of D. melanogaste…
Genetic identification of a network of factors that functionally interact with the nucleosome remodeling ATPase ISWI.
2008
Nucleosome remodeling and covalent modifications of histones play fundamental roles in chromatin structure and function. However, much remains to be learned about how the action of ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling factors and histone-modifying enzymes is coordinated to modulate chromatin organization and transcription. The evolutionarily conserved ATP-dependent chromatin-remodeling factor ISWI plays essential roles in chromosome organization, DNA replication, and transcription regulation. To gain insight into regulation and mechanism of action of ISWI, we conducted an unbiased genetic screen to identify factors with which it interacts in vivo. We found that ISWI interacts with a network o…
Incipient speciation in Drosophila melanogaster involves chemical signals.
2012
WOS: 000300572900001; International audience; The sensory and genetic bases of incipient speciation between strains of Drosophila melanogaster from Zimbabwe and those from elsewhere are unknown. We studied mating behaviour between eight strains - six from Zimbabwe, together with two cosmopolitan strains. The Zimbabwe strains showed significant sexual isolation when paired with cosmopolitan males, due to Zimbabwe females discriminating against these males. Our results show that flies' cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs) were involved in this sexual isolation, but that visual and acoustic signals were not. The mating frequency of Zimbabwe females was highly significantly negatively correlated with t…
RNA methylation by Dnmt2 protects transfer RNAs against stress-induced cleavage
2010
The covalent modification of nucleic acids plays an important role in regulating the functions of DNA and RNA. DNA modifications have been analyzed in considerable detail, and the characterization of (cytosine-5) DNA methylation has been crucial for understanding the molecular basis of epigenetic gene regulation (Klose and Bird 2006). (Cytosine-5) methylation has also been documented in various RNA species, including tRNA, but the function of RNA methylation has not been firmly established yet (Motorin et al. 2010). Dnmt2 proteins were originally assigned to the DNA methyltransferase family, because of their strong sequence conservation of catalytic DNA methyltransferase motifs (Okano et al…
XRCC5 as a Risk Gene for Alcohol Dependence : Evidence from a Genome-Wide Gene-Set-Based Analysis and Follow-up Studies in Drosophila and Humans
2015
Genetic factors play as large a role as environmental factors in the etiology of alcohol dependence. Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) enable systematic searches for loci not hitherto implicated in the etiology of alcohol dependence, many true findings may be missed due to correction for multiple testing. The aim of the present study was to circumvent this limitation by searching for biological system-level differences, and then following up these findings in humans and animals. Gene-set based analysis of GWAS data from 1333 cases and 2168 controls identified 19 significantly associated gene-sets of which five could be replicated in an independent sample. Clustered in these ge…