desat1 and the evolution of pheromonal communication in Drosophila.
The evolution of communication is a fundamental biological problem. The genetic control of the signal and its reception must be tightly coadapted, especially in interindividual sexual communication. However, there is very little experimental evidence for tight genetic linkage connecting the emission of a signal and its reception. In Drosophila melanogaster, desat1 is the first known gene that simultaneously affects the emission and the perception of sex pheromones. Our experiments show that both aspects of pheromonal communication (the emission and the perception of sex pheromones) depend on distinct genetic control and may result from tissue-specific expression of different transcripts, all coding for the same desaturase. Therefore, and given the high conservation of its coding region, the pleiotropic activity of the desat1 gene may have arisen from an evolutionary process that shaped its regulatory regions.
Bousquet
François
F
Unité Mixte de Recherche, Associée au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Bourgogne, Faculté des Sciences, Dijon, France.
Houot
Benjamin
B
Chauvel
Isabelle
I
Dupas
Stéphane
S
Ferveur
Jean-François
JF
D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004330:Drosophila / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D044943:Fatty Acid Desaturases / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D010675:Pheromones / Q000502:physiology*
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D010675:Pheromones; D044943:Fatty Acid Desaturases; C408225:desat1 protein, Drosophila