Release 6, the latest reference genome assembly of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, was released by the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project in 2014; it replaces their previous Release 5 genome assembly, which had been the reference genome assembly for over 7 years. With the enormous amount of information now attached to the D. melanogaster genome in public repositories and individual labor...

Time-series analysis of whole-genome expression data during Drosophila melanogaster development indicates that up to 86% of its genes change their relative transcript level during embryogenesis. By applying conservative filtering criteria and requiring 'sharp' transcript changes, we identified 1534 maternal genes, 792 transient zygotic genes, and 1053 genes whose transcript levels increase duri...

Acoustic communication in drosophilid flies is based on the production and perception of courtship songs, which facilitate mating. Despite decades of research on courtship songs and behavior in Drosophila, central auditory responses have remained uncharacterized. In this study, we report on intracellular recordings from central neurons that innervate the Drosophila antennal mechanosensory and m...

We present a novel method for the unsupervised discovery of behavioural motifs in larval Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. A motif is defined as a particular sequence of postures that recurs frequently. The animal's changing posture is represented by an eigenshape time series, and we look for motifs in this time series. To find motifs, the eigenshape time series is segmented, ...

In interspecific hybrids between Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans, the D. simulans nucleoporin-encoding Nup96(sim) and Nup160(sim) can cause recessive lethality if the hybrid does not also inherit the D. simulans X chromosome. In addition, Nup160(sim) leads to recessive female sterility in the D. melanogaster genetic background. Here, we conducted carefully controlled crosses to ...

Aberrant production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a common feature damaged retinal neurons in diabetic retinopathy, and antioxidants may exert both preventive therapeutic action. To evaluate the beneficial antioxidant properties food supplementation with Lisosan G, powder bran germ grain (Triticum aestivum) obtained by fermentation selected lactobacillus natural yeast strains, we used an ...

Drosophila melanogaster is unique amongst model organisms in that males utilize achiasmatic meiosis, where formation of the synaptonemal complex (SC) and recombination are absent. Most organisms require the SC and chiasmata for the successful completion of meiosis and production of viable gametes, making D. melanogaster an ideal system for the study of meiotic variation. Drosophila are not the ...

Gene conversion is the nonreciprocal exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes. Multiple lines of evidence from a variety of taxa strongly suggest that gene conversion events are biased toward GC-bearing alleles. However, in Drosophila, the data have largely been indirect and unclear, with some studies supporting the predictions of a GC-biased gene conversion model and other d...

Files from a transgenic line of Drosophila melanogaster with two copies of the metallothionein allele Mtn3 were more tolerant to cadmium than strains with only one copy of the gene. However, flies with the Mtn3 allele were as tolerant as flies with the Mtn3 allele, despite the level of expression of Mtn3 being three times higher than of Mtn3. We propose that the substitution of Lys-40 (in Mtn3)...

The Hedgehog signaling pathway has been recognized as essential for patterning processes in development of metazoan animal species. The signaling pathway is, however, not entirely understood. To start to address this problem, we set out to isolate new mutations that influence Hedgehog signaling. We performed a mutagenesis screen for mutations that dominantly suppress Hedgehog overexpression phe...