An olfactory receptor for food-derived odours promotes male courtship in Drosophila

Yael Grosjean, Raphael Rytz, Jean-Pierre Farine, Liliane Abuin, Jérôme Cortot, Gregory S. X. E. Jefferis and Richard Benton ()
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Yael Grosjean: Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Raphael Rytz: Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Jean-Pierre Farine: Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l’Alimentation, UMR-6265 CNRS, UMR-1324 INRA, Université de Bourgogne, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000 Dijon, France
Liliane Abuin: Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Jérôme Cortot: Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l’Alimentation, UMR-6265 CNRS, UMR-1324 INRA, Université de Bourgogne, 6 Boulevard Gabriel, 21000 Dijon, France
Gregory S. X. E. Jefferis: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK
Richard Benton: Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Nature, 2011, vol. 478, issue 7368, 236-240

Abstract: If food be the food of love... Courtship is a costly business in terms of both time and energy, so animals must make sure that they've found a willing partner before making the effort — a job often done through pheromone communication. Now Richard Benton and colleagues have discovered that fruitfly males also need the proximity of good food before they commit to a courtship routine. They identify a member of a recently described chemosensory ion-channel family — Ionotropic receptor 84a — as key to sensing fruit-derived aromatics and gating pheromone-sensing neuronal pathways that control courtship routines. Such cross-talk between olfactory and pheromonal circuits constitutes a previously unrecognized evolutionary mechanism coupling reproductive behaviour to good feeding and oviposition sites.

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1038/nature10428

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