Bond gene in fruit flies controls fertility of rival males

Bond (purple) is found in the male reproductive system (gray). Image courtesy of Wan Chin Ng and Joanne Yew.

Insects use a tremendous diversity of pheromone chemical signals to guide their behaviors but little is known about how pheromone diversity evolves.

“Our work reveals that one way new pheromones are produced is by hijacking genes which are used for other biological processes—in this case, male fertility,” said Joanne Yew, assistant professor at the Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC) and lead author of the study published today in Nature Communications. “The findings reveal a molecular mechanism by which novel traits evolve, a long-standing problem in evolutionary biology.”

The gene, named “bond,” was found using genetic screening which identified genes in Drosophila that are involved in pheromone synthesis. The researchers used the technique to knockout the function of candidate genes, one by one, within the male reproductive organs. In assessing the pheromone profile of the mutated flies, the scientists noted that the male flies in which bond expression was silenced were missing one of the major sex pheromones.

Read more about it in the UH System News and the UHM press release.