Mutant flies give mixed-up mating messages
Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - 06:30
in Biology & Nature
Ruifen Weng did not originally set out to study fly sexual behavior. As a researcher in Stephen Cohen's laboratory at the A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore, she was attempting to clarify the function of the miR-124 gene in neuronal development. When Weng generated flies in which this gene was deleted, however, she observed striking shifts in courtship and mating activity that ultimately led her and her co-workers to important new insights into pheromone function.