MAMMALIAN-LIKE FIGHT PATTERNS IN
DROSOPHILA
The recent discovery of
sex-linked patterns of aggressive behaviour in Drosophila melanogaster, has
added one more role in the lab for the fruit-fly.
Male Drosophila
exhibit aggression in competition for resources, to defend territory and for
access to mate, displaying a stereotyped, sex-specific aggressive fight pattern,
characterized by “boxing” and “lunging”. The outcome of male fights establishes
a dominance relationship and therefore will influence the outcome of subsequent
fights. Female fruit-flies show a different pattern marked by “shoving” and
“head-butting”. It seems that the outcome of female fights is independent of
previous encounters.
On these bases, in the
recent past Drosophila melanogaster has been used as a system to study
the genetics of aggression.
Vrontou and colleagues of
the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology Doctor Bohr-Gasse (Wien, Austria)
link the gene fruitless (fru) to sex-specific aggressive
behaviour and the formation of dominance relationship in Drosophila (Vrontou E., et al.,
fruitless regulates aggression and dominance in Drosophila. Nature
Neuroscience 9, 1469-1471, 2006).
This study shows that fru,
a sex-specifically spliced transcription factor with a well established role in
courtship behaviour, genetically links aggression and courtship in mammalian-like
behavioural patterns. It will be interesting to see if these studies can be applied
to vertebrate and give us new insights into genetics of human behaviour.