The yellow gene influences Drosophila male mating success through sex comb melanization

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster males perform a series of courtship behaviors that, when successful, result in copulation with a female. For over a century, mutations in the yellow gene, named for its effects on pigmentation, have been known to reduce male mating success. Prior work has suggested that yellow influences mating behavior through effects on wing extension, song, and/or courtship vigor. Here, we rule out these explanations, as well as effects on the nervous system more generally, and find instead that the effects of yellow on male mating success are mediated by its effects on pigmentation of male-specific leg structures called sex combs. Loss of yellow expression in these modified bristles reduces their melanization, which changes their structure and causes difficulty grasping females prior to copulation. These data illustrate why the mechanical properties of anatomy, not just neural circuitry, must be considered to fully understand the development and evolution of behavior.

Cuticle darkening correlates with increased body copper content in Drosophila melanogaster

“…Interestingly, an early report suggested that e mutants of D. melanogaster were more resistant to desiccation stress than wildtype flies, whereas y mutants of multiple species were less desiccation resistant (Kalmus 1941). In addition, e mutants produce longer hydrocarbon cuticle chains (Massey et al 2019a), whereas male y mutants have difficulty to sustain copulation (Massey et al 2019b), underscoring the pleiotropic function of these genes. It was shown independently that selection in the laboratory for desiccation resistance produced populations with longer hydrocarbon chains (Gibbs et al 1997).…”

Assessment of a Split Homing Based Gene Drive for Efficient Knockout of Multiple Genes

“…Interestingly, our estimations of homing rates by the shadow drive in white locus are notably higher than the previously reported in yellow locus: 59-72% ( Figure 2) vs. 29-32% (Guichard et al 2019) and 38% (Champer et al 2019c), although the ratio of first generation drive to shadow drive frequencies is comparable in these systems ($50%). The differences may be due to the yellow locus being less accessible to cleavage and HDR than white locus, or perhaps the lower fitness of yellow LOF somatic mutations (see below) biases against their inheritance (Massey et al 2019).…”

Programmable RNA Targeting Using CasRx in Flies

“…S2; Supplementary Table S2). To activate CasRx expression in specific tissues, we used available Gal4 driver lines that restricted expression to either the eye (GMR-Gal4) 46 or the wing and body (yellow-Gal4); 47 ( Supplementary Table S2). These lines were crossed to the same homozygous gRNA array lines described above targeting w, y, or N ( Supplementary Fig.…”