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desat1 and the Evolution of Pheromonal Communication in Drosophila
Author(s) -
Bousquet François,
Houot Benjamin,
Chauvel Isabelle,
Dupas Stéphane,
Ferveur JeanFrançois
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.03927.x
Subject(s) - sex pheromone , drosophila melanogaster , biology , genetics , pheromone , gene , drosophila (subgenus) , perception , evolutionary biology , communication , neuroscience , psychology
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.