2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Roles of the fru gene and fru-neural circuitry for the species-specificity in Drosophila courtship behavior
| Project/Area Number |
23220007
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Neuroscience in general
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| Research Institution | Tohoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KIMURA Ken-ichi 北海道教育大学, 教育学部, 教授 (80214873)
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| Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha) |
KOGANEZAWA Masayuki 東北大学, 大学院生命科学研究科, 准教授 (10302085)
TOBA Gakuta 筑波大学, URA研究戦略推進室, リサーチアドミニストレーター (40599669)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2011-04-01 – 2016-03-31
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| Keywords | 種特異的行動 / 神経回路 / fruitless / ショウジョウバエ / 転写 / 同定ニューロン / 求愛行動 / 性差 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Why does every animal species exhibit a behavioral pattern that is distinctly different from that of other species? In this study, we address this question by a comparative approach in two fruit fly species, Drosophila melanogaster and D. subobscura. We focus on a courtship behavior element unique to D. subobscura, the extrusion of proboscis by a male directed to the female face (licking-like action). We hypothesized that a new behavioral element will be added to the courtship ritual when a new cellular member is recruited to the circuit by mutations. We revealed that genetic transfer of a regulatory region of the courtship master regulator gene fruitless from subobscura to melanogaster partly conferred the ability to execute the licking-like action on the melanogaster host, when the transferred sequence was used to activate the neurons. It remains unknown which neurons are critically involved in producing the subobscura-type licking-like action in the melanogaster host.
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| Free Research Field |
行動遺伝学
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