title: desat1 and the evolution of pheromonal communication in Drosophila.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Unité Mixte de Recherche, Associée au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Bourgogne, Faculté des Sciences, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bousquet
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Houot
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Chauvel
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dupas
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Ferveur
mesh_terms: 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*
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D010675:Pheromones; D044943:Fatty Acid Desaturases; C408225:desat1 protein, Drosophila