Genetic dissection of sexual orientation: behavioral, cellular, and molecular approaches in Drosophila melanogaster

Neuroscience Research
D YamamotoK Fujitani

Abstract

Insertional mutagenesis using P-element vectors yielded several independent mutations that cause male homosexuality in Drosophila melanogaster. Subsequent analyses revealed that all of these insertions were located at the same chromosomal division, 91B, where one of the inversion breakpoints responsible for the bisexual phenotype of the fruitless (fru) mutant has been mapped. In addition to the altered sexual orientation, the fru mutants displayed a range of defects in the formation of a male-specific muscle, the muscle of Lawrence. Since the male-specific formation of this muscle was dependent solely on the sex of the innervating nerve and not on the sex of the muscle itself, the primary site of action of the fru gene should be in the neural cells. satori, one of the P-insertion alleles of fru which we isolated, carried the lacZ gene of E. coli as a reporter, and beta-galactosidase expression was found in a subset of brain cells including those in the antennal lobe in the satori mutant. Targeted expression of a sex determination gene, transformer (tra), was used to produce chromosomally male flies with certain feminized glomeruli in the antennal lobe. Such sexually mosaic flies courted not only females but also males when the ...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 26, 1998·Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications·D Yamamoto, Y Nakano
Apr 27, 2000·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·P Sunnucks
Jun 17, 2000·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·K A CrandallR K Wayne
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Sep 20, 2002·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Toshihiro Kitamoto
Jan 1, 1997·Annual Review of Entomology·D YamamotoA Komatsu

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