title: Conservation of fruitless' role as master regulator of male courtship behaviour from cockroaches to flies.
abstract: In Drosophila melanogaster, male courtship behaviour is regulated by the fruitless gene. In D. melanogaster, fruitless encodes a set of putative transcription factors that are sex-specifically spliced. Male-specific variants are necessary and sufficient to elicit male courtship behaviour. Fruitless sequences have been reported in other insect species, but there are no data available on their functional role. In the present work, we cloned and sequenced fruitless in males of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, and we studied its expression in male brain and testes. B. germanica fruitless encodes a 350-amino acid protein with BTB and Zinc finger domains typical of fruitless sequences. Upon RNAi-mediated knockdown of fruitless in B. germanica, males no longer exhibit courtship behaviour, thus implying that fruitless is necessary for male sexual behaviour in our cockroach model. This suggests that the role of fruitless as master regulator of male sexual behaviour has been conserved along insect evolution, at least from cockroaches to flies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37, 08003, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Clynen
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ciudad
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bellés
authors.forename: Maria-Dolors
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Piulachs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003058:Cockroaches / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D003380:Courtship; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D034622:RNA Interference / Q000502:physiology; D012326:RNA Splicing; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016335:Zinc Fingers / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C103226:fru protein, Drosophila