The Scent of the Fly
Autor: | Marie Bengtsson, Erik Hedenström, Felipe Borrero-Echeverry, Sébastien Lebreton, Erika A. Wallin, Paul G. Becher, Volker Joerger, Peter Witzgall |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2018 |
Předmět: |
Male
0301 basic medicine Pheromone Zoology Wine Olfaction Alkenes Biochemistry Pheromones 03 medical and health sciences Species Specificity Kemiteknik Melanogaster Animals Semiochemical Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Aldehydes biology Off-flavour fungi General Medicine Mating Preference Animal Chemical Engineering biology.organism_classification Smell 030104 developmental biology Drosophila melanogaster Odorant Odorants Female |
Popis: | (Z)-4-undecenal (Z4-11Al) is the volatile pheromone produced by females of the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster. Female flies emit Z4-11Al for species-specific communication and mate-finding. A sensory panel finds that synthetic Z4-11Al has a characteristic flavour, which can be perceived even at the small amounts produced by a single female fly. Since only females produce Z4-11Al, and not males, we can reliably distinguish between single D. melanogaster males and females, according to their scent. Females release Z4-11Al at 2.4 ng/h and we readily sense 1 ng synthetic Z4-11Al in a glass of wine (0.03 nmol/L), while a tenfold concentration is perceived as a loud off-flavour. This corroborates the observation that a glass of wine is spoilt by a single D. melanogaster fly falling into it, which we here show is caused by Z4-11Al. The biological role of Z4-11Al or structurally related aldehydes in humans and the basis for this semiochemical convergence remains yet unclear. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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