A single genetic change can make female fruit flies act like amorous males – lusting after other females and wooing them with the species’ elaborate courtship display, according to a report in the current issue of the journal Cell.
Geneticist Barry Dickson and graduate student Ebru Demir made a small change to a gene dubbed fruitless, which got its name because males with a damaged version ignore females completely and sometimes try to mate with other males.
Although the fruitless gene is present in both female and male Drosophila melanogaster flies, it is translated into a slightly different protein in males.
Dickson and Demir, both of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, genetically altered the gene so it would always make the male protein, then engineered that gene into female flies.
The engineered females rebuffed males that tried to mate with them and began to imitate the multistep male courting dance. Before mating, a male orients his body diagonally to the female, taps her forelegs and chest, sings a high-pitched mating song by rapidly vibrating one wing, licks her genitalia and finally copulates.
The altered females tapped, then sang, but faltered in later steps of courtship.
“It is possible that their song is not perfect,” Dickson said.
Alternatively, he said, they may not have the right pheromones to interest females.
The scientists hypothesize that the fruitless gene acts as a master switch that sets in motion a cascade of genetic changes to program flies’ sexual behavior.
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