Specificity and Molecular Features of an Insect Attractant in a Drosophila Mutant

Abstract

SEVERAL attractants and repellents which are highly specific for a given species or sex have been identified in the last decade. Although much effort has been concentrated on demonstrating the molecular basis of odour perception in insects, the mechanisms involved are still far from clear¹. As the complicated network of cellular function in chemotaxis has been successfully analysed in bacteria, using a mutation which indicates alteration of one element involved at a time, a similar approach is expected to be fruitful in studies of the olfactory system^2,3. Drosophila is the insect of choice for such studies because of its large stock of marker genes and crossing-over suppressors which are essential for the isolation of induced olfactory mutants. Recent success in the isolation of behavioural mutants of Drosophila has thrown light on this subject⁴. I shall describe here the properties of an olfactory mutant of Drosophila melanogaster and the molecular characteristics of the odours to which the mutant responded specifically.