| Literature DB >> 35979224 |
Gary Huang1, Herman A Dierick1,2.
Abstract
Aggression is an evolutionarily conserved behavior present in most animals and is necessary for survival when competing for limited resources and mating partners. Studies have shown that aggression is modulated both genetically and epigenetically, but details of how the molecular and cellular mechanisms interact to determine aggressive behavior remain to be elucidated. In recent decades, Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a powerful model system to understand the mechanisms that regulate aggression. Surprisingly most of the findings discovered to date have not come from genetic screens despite the fly's long and successful history of using screens to unravel its biology. Here, we highlight the tools and techniques used to successfully screen for aggression-linked behavioral elements in Drosophila and discuss the potential impact future screens have in advancing our knowledge of the underlying genetic and neural circuits governing aggression.Entities:
Keywords: Drosophila melanogaster; P-element insertions; aggression; chemical mutagenesis; genetic screen
Year: 2022 PMID: 35979224 PMCID: PMC9377312 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.901453
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Behav Neurosci ISSN: 1662-5153 Impact factor: 3.617
Types of screens for analyzing aggression.
| Type of screen | Description | Advantages/Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Chemical mutagenesis | Uses chemical mutagens to induce random mutations across the genome. EMS is the most common one in | Chemical mutagenesis can cause a gain of function as well as loss of function mutations. Many mutations occur per chromosome so lower numbers need to be screened than for transposons. Mapping mutants is hard although this can be circumvented if multiple alleles are isolated for each gene so that sequencing can often identify the causal locus. Genetic background can be controlled by using an isogenized background at the start of the screen. |
| P-element disruption | Uses transposons to randomly integrate and disrupt gene function. Many different transposons exist with different genome biases. | Transposon insertions almost always lead to loss or partial loss of function phenotypes. Most transposons have insertion bias. Different transposons should be considered to circumvent bias. Typically only one gene at a time is mutated so many more mutants need to be screened to reach saturation. Mapping the mutants is easier than mapping chemically induced mutants. Large collections of transposons exist. The genetic background of different collections may affect behavior. |
| GAL4/UAS | Collections of P-elements containing GAL4 have been generated to drive the expression of different effectors in particular cell types. | Large GAL4 libraries exist and these can be crossed to many different effectors. Effectors that increase or decrease activity are available and can successfully identify circuits that control aggression. GAL4 lines can also be combined with RNAi lines for which there are also collections. The choice of the driver is important in an RNAi screen because knockdown in the wrong cell type may lead to false negatives. Knockdown is sometimes insufficient to observe a phenotype also causing false negatives. |
Figure 1Comparison of behavioral chamber setup to streamline phenotyping in a screen. (A,B) Steps requiring manual labor are highlighted in orange. (A) Traditional method. The experimenter collects male flies and loads one male fly per vial. The flies are grown in isolation for 4–5 days, then transferred to the behavioral chamber with one pair per circular well before behavior is recorded. (B) Divider assay. The experimenter collects male flies and loads two flies per chamber, one on each side of the removable divider. The flies are grown in isolation for 4–5 days, the dividers removed, and behavior is recorded.