How Genetic Fruit Fly could change the fight against mosquito diseases

How the fruits fly the mating can keep a key to limit the spread of mosquitoes from mosquitoes.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Iowa found a gene that orchestrates the movements of the antenna of female fruit flies, which is central to detect the unique sound produced by future male companions. This gene, Iowa researchers say, is present in mosquitoes and can be silenced, which will theoretically reduce the chances of mating and thus reduce the increase in mosquito population.

Mosquitoes are well -known carriers for a number of diseases that affect human health. In the United States, these diseases include West Nile virus, encephalitis of Eastern Hippides and Zika. Female mosquitoes spread these diseases between animals and humans when biting them, extracting blood infected with a germ of disease that can then be transmitted to others in subsequent bites.

Mosquitoes actually have a very similar mechanism to the fruit flies of an active resonance, which could have an impact on preventing the spread of so many diseases. Thus, understanding the way the fruits fly and the mosquitoes not only mate but also how they hear could have significant estimates for human health. “

Daniel Eberl, Professor of Biology Department in Iowa and the corresponding author of the study

The researchers used tiny microphones to get the sound when a kind of male winged winged wings. It is those vibrations or pulses, in the air by beating the wings collected from the antennas of female fruit flies, signaling that there is a male partner. You can think of a female fruit antenna as a sensory organ, which “listens” to the vibrations similar to the human ear.

What is interesting is that it’s not the same song.

“I think one key point for us is that the songs they sing are a little different in narrowly connected species,” says Eberl. “The distance between the pulses is special to each species and so it is important because they want to mate with a partner from their own kind.

Biologists have known female flies to coordinate their antennas at a frequency similar to the spectrum of sound derived from a male of a similar species. What they didn’t know is exactly how this perfection took place and specifically.

Iowa researchers examined the hearing Drosophila melanogaster, A well -known and elongated type of fruit fly. Specifically, they studied the Johnston organ of Fly, located in the antenna, and the place where sound is detected. Inside the Johnston organ, they found and studied a path called potassium ion channel, which activates the neurons involved in the hearing of the fly. Further investigation, they learned that a gene, called SHAL, is the tower of species for the ion channel, dictating when external sounds or movements are converted into electrical signals that are subsequently transferred between the neurons. This waterfall of events, which manages the SHAL gene, seemed necessary for the fly to hear.

The researchers then canceled the SHAL gene to confirm its role in coordinating an antenna of a woman and thus listening to it.

“Without the SHAL gene, he loses this ability to coordinate,” says Eli Gregory, a undergraduate student of human physiology from Cedar Rapids who performed gene cancellation experiments. “The female loses its ability to coordinate this antenna at this frequency. And so, you get this lower response to mating than this female.”

Mosquitoes use a similar method in their rituals.

This means that “we could hit this gene or this potassium channel and prevent mosquitoes from being able to mate as effectively as they do, which could mean less mosquitoes; therefore, less problems for human health” , says Eberl.

THE study“SHAL (KV4) potassium channel contributes to active listening to Drosophila”, published online December 17th in Eneuro, An open access magazine for neuroscience.

The co-authors of the study include Mei-Ling Joiner, Assistant Scientist and Assistant Assistant Professor in Biology in Iowa. and Yifeng Xu, Tai-Ting Lee, Azusa Kamikouchi and Matthew su from Nagoya University in Japan.

The US National Foundation, the University of Iowa Office for undergraduate researchers, the scholarships for JSPS Invitational Research on Japan Research, Nagoya University and the Japanese Science and Technology Program funded the research.