Anupama Dahanukar
University of California-Riverside, CA·Neuroscience
How do animals evolve to eat foods that are poisonous to their relatives? Drosophila sechellia, a fruit fly from the Seychelles islands, eats only noni fruit (Morinda citrifolia).
- Fields
Neuroscience
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
- Topics
Drosophila sechellia
Drosophila melanogaster
fruit fly
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Identify genes that reduce responses of bitter, deterrent taste neurons to noni fatty acids in Drosophila sechellia, testing candidate Gustatory receptors, Odorant-binding proteins and Ionotropic receptors.
- Determine which genes lessen the suppression of appetite-driving sweet taste neurons by noni fatty acids in D. sechellia compared with its generalist sibling species.
- Test candidate taste genes using transgenic tools, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and sequencing in both D. melanogaster and D. sechellia, linking each gene to neuron responses and feeding behavior.
More about the research
Noni contains fatty acids that repel or harm most other fly species. This makes the fly a natural test case for how behavior and taste change when an insect switches to a new host plant.
Why it matters
Understanding how D. sechellia's taste genes changed to accept a toxic fruit shows how animals adapt to new food sources over time. It may also explain how insects pick the plants they feed on. That insight could eventually inform pest control and agricultural strategies that steer insects away from crops.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yuan Yuan Kang
University of Houston-Downtown, TX·Neuroscience
Map quantitative trait loci behind the difference in novel-arena exploration between generalist Drosophila simulans and specialist Drosophila sechellia, using a new population of recombinant inbred lines.
Christopher Potter
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Neuroscience
Develop methods to harvest functional Ir8a chemosensory receptor complexes directly from roughly 10 million antennae of transgenic Drosophila expressing an EGFP-tagged Ir8a co-receptor.
Lisa Baik
University of California-Davis, CA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test how taste neurons of Aedes albopictus respond to a panel of taste compounds, including blends of human host cues with different compositions, using physiological recordings.
The school
University of California-Riverside: 21 labs on PI Pages, $232M a year on research, 328 research doctorates a year.
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