Conservation of fruitless' role as master regulator of male courtship behaviour from cockroaches to flies
Conservation of fruitless' role as master regulator of male courtship behaviour from cockroaches to flies
复制标题
DOI：
10.1007/s00427-011-0352-x
复制
发表时间：
2011-05-01
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Piulachs, Maria-Dolors
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Clynen, Elke;Ciudad, Laura;Piulachs, Maria-Dolors
在黑腹果蝇中，雄性求偶行为受无果基因的控制。在黑腹毛虫中，无果基因编码了一组假定的转录因子，这些转录因子是性别特异性剪接的。男性特有的变异是必要的，也是引发男性求爱行为的充分条件。在其他昆虫物种中也有报道没有结果的序列，但没有关于它们功能作用的数据。在本工作中，我们克隆和测序了德国小蠊雄性的无果基因，并研究了其在雄性脑和睾丸中的表达。德国无果芽孢杆菌编码一个350个氨基酸的蛋白质，含有典型的无果序列的BTB和锌指结构域。在RNAi介导的无果基因敲除后，雄性不再表现出求偶行为，这意味着在我们的蟑螂模型中，无果是雄性性行为所必需的。这表明，在昆虫进化的过程中，至少从蟑螂到苍蝇，无果作为雄性性行为的主要调节者的角色一直是保守的。
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.