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Nature 446, 502-504 (29 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/446502a; Published online 28 March 2007

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Behavioural genetics: Sex, flies and acetate

Charalambos P. Kyriacou1

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A receptor molecule in the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster responds to a male pheromone in both sexes. But the effect of this response on sexual behaviour is not the same in males and females.

Courtship in the fruitfly Drosophila involves visual, gustatory, olfactory and acoustic sensations that mediate male advances and, until she mates, poorly understood female rejections1. Cuticular pheromones have been implicated in sexual behaviour both within and between Drosophila species2, 3, but the only known volatile pheromone is 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA), a male-specific lipid that is transferred in the ejaculate to females during copulation4.

  1. Charalambos P. Kyriacou is in the Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
    Email: cpk@leicester.ac.uk

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