Genetics and the love life of the fruit fly
Despite a wealth of knowledge on control of physical characteristics in the fruit fly Drosophila, the genetic control of innate behaviour is as yet poorly understood. Previous research has pointed to the genetics of courtship behaviour in Drosophila coming down to one master switch gene. Once activated, a cascade of biochemical events activates the neural circuitry of the fly translating into the pursuit of the female of the species. .Previous research results have led the EU-funded project ‘Transcriptional regulation of male courtship behaviour: understanding fruitless molecular networks’ (Fruitless Targets) to investigate the role of the fruitless (Fru) gene. Three different isoforms of Fru, FruA, FruB and FruC, have been shown to be important in courtship behaviour. .To test the role of Fru, project scientists first generated tagged versions of the gene. Tagging, in this case with biotin ligase recognition peptide (BLRP), is used to define the predicted protein products of genes and hence their function. The constructs were then incorporated into transgenic flies. The next step was to identify Fru-dependent gene expression changes by obtaining a high throughput profile of messenger RNA (mRNA) after genes have been activated. For this, the team used the thiouracil (TU) tagging technique to isolate the RNA sequences produced, followed by RNA sequencing methods. .Fruitless Targets is working on another technique to replace TU tagging with more efficient methods of RNA enrichment. Based on green fluorescent protein marking and possible collection using antibodies, the new method is already more efficient at RNA isolation. .The scene is set for an analysis of identification of the genetic material and proteins produced as a result of one gene switch that controls male fruit fly courtship. As such, the work by Fruitless Targets will no doubt help to elucidate how individual master switch genes control seemingly very complex functions.