Today's Messages

Please join the Biology Department and the Great Lakes Center for the seminar “Pick Your Poison: Evolutionary Genetics of Ethanol Resistance in Drosophila melanogaster,” presented by Dr. James Fry on Monday, February 2, at 3:00 p.m. in SAMC 151. Attendees are welcome to arrive at 2:50 p.m. to enjoy coffee and cookies leading up to the seminar. 

Research Seminar Abstract: The decaying fruit in which Drosophila melanogaster feed and breed can contain ethanol in concentrations as high as 6–7%. In this cosmopolitan species, populations from temperate regions are consistently more resistant to ethanol poisoning than populations from the tropics. I describe several investigations designed to elucidate the genetic and physiological basis of this difference. The results show: 1) some genes that affect ethanol resistance do so by affecting resistance to acetaldehyde and acetic acid, downstream products of ethanol metabolism; 2) an amino acid substitution in aldehyde dehydrogenase, which catalyzes the second step of ethanol metabolism, creates a trade-off, with the variant that increases fitness in the presence of ethanol decreasing fitness in its absence; and 3) adaptation to ethanol involves multiple genes. These findings show that physiological/biochemical adaptations can be complex, and provides evidence that trade-offs may be important in maintaining genetic variation for such traits.