Mechanisms and genes in Drosophila hearing

Abstract

Abstract The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster com­municates acoustically and hears with its an­tennae. Fundamental aspects of hearing can be studied in these antennal ears, the audi­tory sensory cells of which are evolutionarily related to vertebrate hair cells and are spec­ified developmentally by homologous tran­scription factors. Like vertebrate hair cells, Drosophila auditory sensory cells are also mo­tile and actively amplify the mechanical vi­brations they transduce. The transduction and amplification mechanisms rely on the in­terplay between mechanically activated ion channels and motor proteins, whose move­ment impacts upon the macroscopic perfor­mance of the ear. The first molecular trans­ducer components have been identified and various auditory system-relevant proteins have been described. Several of these pro­teins are conserved components of cilia, sug­gesting the fly’s ear as a model for human cil­iopathies. The evolution of sensory signaling cascades can also be studied using the fly’s ear, as the fly employs key chemo- and pho­toreceptor proteins to hear. Evidence is al­so accumulating that the fly’s ear is a multi­functional sensory organ, which, in addition to mediating hearing, serves to detect wind, gravity and presumably temperature.