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Fruit Fly Research: Link to Human Sleep Disorders
If you're suffering from a sleep disorder, then you'll want to know the kind of research that molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu of the UC Davis Department of Entomology is doing--with fruit flies.
The research may one day lead to alleviating your sleep disorder.
Chiu and two of her former colleagues at Rutgers just published groundbreaking research in the journal Cell. They identified a new mechanism that slows down or speeds up the internal clock of fruit flies.
By mutating one amino acid in a single protein, "we changed the speed of the internal clock and flies now ‘think' it is 16 hours a day instead of 24 hours a day," said Chiu, an assistant professor of entomology.
"Our goal, of course, is not to trick flies into thinking the day is shorter or longer, but to dissect this complex phospho-circuit (phosphorylation sites) that controls clock speed in metazoans."
Their work, involving the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The world of circadian clocks is a complex one. "Living organisms-plants, animals and even bacteria-have an internal clock or timer that helps them to determine the time of day," Chiu said. "This internal clock is vital to their survival since it allows them to synchronize their activity to the natural environment, so that they can perform necessary tasks at biologically advantageous times of day."
"A functional clock is required to generate proper circadian rhythms of physiology and behavior including the sleep-wake cycle, daily hormonal variations and mating rhythms," Chiu said.
Read more about her research on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
The fruit fly, small in size--about 1/8th inch long--stands tall as a prized tool for genetic research and developmental studies.
Indeed, the red-eyed fly is a "golden bug.”
Molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu at work in her lab at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
In the Thick of Fruit Flies
Roger Vargas is in the thick of fruit-fly research and he probably wishes those insects would thin out.
He's a research entomologist at the USDA-ARS Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii. For those who don't deal with acronyms, that's the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Vargas' key research interests include mass rearing, sterile insect technique, ecology, biological control, and area-wide integrated pest management (IPM) of fruit flies.
Vargas will be at the University of California, Davis, on Wednesday, Feb. 9 to speak on "Area-Wide Fruit Fly Programs against Fruit Flies in Hawaii, French Polynesia and California." His talk, sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and part of its winter seminar series, is set from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 1022 Life Sciences Addition, corner of Hutchison and Kleiber Hall drives.
The lecture will be webcast live at http://uc-d.na4.acrobat.com/ucsn1/ and then archived here. He plans to cover current area-wide management programs against Bactrocera fruit flies in Hawaii, French Polynesia, and California.
"Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are among the most economically important pests attacking soft fruits worldwide," Vargas says. "Bactrocera is a tephritid fly genus of at least 440 species distributed primarily in tropical Asia, the south Pacific, and Australia. However, these species have been spreading throughout the world at an alarming rate over the past 15 years.
"Oriental fruit fly (B. dorsalis) has become established and is spreading throughout French Polynesia.
"Carambola fruit fly (B. carambolae) is established and spreading throughout areas of South America.
"B. invadens, B. latifrons and melon fly (B. cucurbitae) are established and spreading in Africa.
"The peach fruit fly (B. zonata) is established and spreading in Africa and the Mediterranean region."
In fact, Vargas says, every year Bactrocera species are accidentally introduced from various parts of the world into California, requiring expensive treatment programs.
For an up-close and personal look at a fruit fly, check out the USDA-ARS photo of a Oriental fruit fly laying eggs in a papaya (below).
Coming soon...to a fruit near you...
Roger Vargas
Fruit Fly
Not a Failure to Communicate
The female silkworm moth releases a sex pheromone, bombykol, that's very enticing to the male. He can detect it from miles away.
Now researchers in the UC Davis Department of Entomology have discovered that the fruit fly has a native odorant receptor that detects the silkworm moth’s sex pheromone, and that it’s “amazingly more sensitive” than the moth’s odorant receptor.
Their work could open research doors for insect-inspired biosensors.
Walter Leal, professor of entomology, and postdoctoral scholar Zain Syed know the olfactory systems of silkworm moths (Bombyx mori) and fruit flies (Drosophilia melanogaster) well.
In a serendipitous discovery, the chemical ecologists found that the fruit fly’s odor detector not only detects bombykol, but responds to bombykol with high sensitivity. Their groundbreaking research, Bombykol Receptors in the Silkworm Moth and the Fruit Fly, was published May 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).Their research follows on the heels of another study they published in PNAS in 2006 with the Deborah Kimbrell genetics lab in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences. Bottom line: they found that genetically engineered fruit flies responded to the silkworm moth scent of a female.
Now Leal and Syed have identified the odorant receptor in the male fruit fly that detects the sex pheromone.
Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Fred Gould of North Carolina State University, not affiliated with the research, says the work of the UC Davis researchers "provides important guidance and tools for other researchers who want to explore the pheromone communication systems of other species, or who want to further dissect the mechanisms within the specialized hairs of silkworms that enable this high sensitivity.”What we have here with the silkworm moths and fruit flies is definitely not a "failure to communicate."
Mulberry Tree
Drosophila Head
Scent of a Female
