WIDE AWAKE modulates male-male courtship in Drosophila

• Main Authors: Yu-Hui Chen, 陳昱暉
• Other Authors: Tasi-Feng Fu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/35169669573968143477

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 應用化學系 === 104 === Animals present several sensory cues to identify the same species and suitable partner for reproduction. Courtship, an instinct of animals in the nature, normally occurs in between opposite sexes. Interestingly, a lot of researches proved that courtship and sexual behaviors existed between the same sexes in many species, but the cellular or molecular mechanism is not clear. In this study, I demonstrate the existence of functional WIDE AWAKE (WAKE) and their acute requirement for inhibiting inter-male courtship in the neuronal system of adult Drosophila. I showed that hypomorphic mutants of the essential wake gene on both partners cause male-male courtship behavior, and can be rescued in either the wake heterozygous courter, or the courtee. Consistently, the knocking down of WAKE by expressing UAS-RNAiwake under an RU486-inducible pan-neuronal driver (elav-GeneSwitch) also caused inter-male courtship behavior. Interestingly, the WAKE may modulate the GABAA receptor Resistant to Dieldrin (Rdl) levels for inhibiting male-to-male courtship. These data explicitly demonstrate the involvement of wake in Drosophila inter-male courtship behavior and may lead to important advances in the understanding in vertebrates.