One gene provides fruit fly both antenna and color vision

<img src="/news/PublishingImages/4048_t.jpg" alt="Pretty fly — for a fruit fly. The areas stained blue are regions in the fruit fly where the spineless gene is expressed.” height=”211″ width=”150″ />Pretty fly – for a fruit fly. The areas stained blue are regions in the fruit fly where the spineless gene is expressed.A team of researchers that includes biologists from Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that a gene involved in the development and function of the fruit fly antenna also gives the organism its color vision. Claude Desplan, Ph.D., professor of biology at New York University, and his students made the discovery and provided the data. Ian Duncan, Washington University professor of biology, and his wife, research assistant Dianne Duncan, provided the Desplan laboratory fruit fly (Drosophila) clones and mutants and technical assistance that helped locate where the gene, called spineless, is expressed in the retina. More…