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Epistatic Interactions Between smell-impaired Loci in Drosophila melanogaster
Gra
yna M. Fedorowicza,b,
James D. Fry1,b,
Robert R. H. Anholta, and
Trudy F. C. Mackayb
a Departments of Zoology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7614
b Departments of Genetics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7614
Corresponding author: Trudy F. C. Mackay, Department of Genetics, Box 7614, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7614, trudy_mackay{at}ncsu.edu (E-mail).
Communicating editor: L. PARTRIDGE
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
Odor-guided behavior is a polygenic trait determined by the concerted expression of multiple loci. Previously, P-element mutagenesis was used to identify single P[lArB] insertions, in a common isogenic background, with homozygous effects on olfactory behavior. Here, we have crossed 12 lines with these smell impaired (smi) mutations in a half-diallel design (excluding homozygous parental genotypes and reciprocal crosses) to produce all possible 66 doubly heterozygous hybrids with P[lArB] insertions at two distinct locations. The olfactory behavior of the transheterozygous progeny was measured using an assay that quantified the avoidance response to the repellent odorant benzaldehyde. There was significant variation in general combining abilities of avoidance scores among the smi mutants, indicating variation in heterozygous effects. Further, there was significant variation among specific combining abilities of each cross, indicating dependencies of heterozygous effects on the smi locus genotypes, i.e., epistasis. Significant epistatic interactions were identified for nine transheterozygote genotypes, involving 10 of the 12 smi loci. Eight of these loci form an interacting ensemble of genes that modulate expression of the behavioral phenotype. These observations illustrate the power of quantitative genetic analyses to detect subtle phenotypic effects and point to an extensive network of epistatic interactions among genes in the olfactory subgenome.
THE fundamental goal of quantitative genetics is to understand how complex traits are shaped through the interactions of multiple genes in different genetic backgrounds and under varying environmental conditions. Perhaps the most complex category of polygenic traits is represented by various forms of animal behavior. Drosophila melanogaster presents an ideal model system to study the genetic basis of behavioral quantitative traits, because mutations in highly inbred strains can be easily generated, allowing control over the segregation of many individual loci that contribute to the trait and enabling the effect of each locus to be studied independently. We have used odor-guided behavior in D. melanogaster as a model system to study the quantitative genetics of behavior.
Odor-guided behavior is of special interest, because the ability of an organism to respond to chemical signals from its environment is essential for its survival and, often, its procreation. Thus, olfactory behavior contributes to individual fitness (![]()
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Chemical mutagenesis has been used to induce mutations affecting olfactory behavior in D. melanogaster, mostly on the X chromosome (![]()
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As the smi loci have similar phenotypes, they are likely to be functionally related and participate in common physiological and/or developmental pathways that shape olfactory responsiveness. One genetic method for identifying and ordering genes in functionally interacting groups is to screen for mutations at unlinked loci that enhance or suppress the mutant effects of a known member of the pathway (![]()
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Detecting interactions between mutations with quantitative effects is more difficult, because the mutations are not usually completely recessive (![]()
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Significant epistatic interactions were identified for nine transheterozygote genotypes, involving 10 of the 12 smi loci. Interactions between eight of these loci show evidence of a web of mutually interactive genes, the coordinated expression of which modulates the behavioral phenotype. These findings illustrate the power of quantitative genetic analyses to detect subtle phenotypic effects and indicate that phenotypic determination of odor-guided behavior in D. melanogaster depends quantitatively on an extensive network of genetic interactions.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
|---|
Generation of transheterozygous P[lArB] insert lines:
The parental lines used to generate double mutant heterozygotes were 12 homozygous smi lines obtained by P-element mutagenesis of the isogenic Samarkand; ry506 strain: smi21F, smi26D, smi27E, smi28E, smi35A, smi45E, smi51A, smi60E, smi61A, smi65A, smi97B, and smi98B (![]()
j) in plastic culture vials. All animals were reared at 25° on agar-yeast-molasses medium.
Behavioral assay:
To quantify odor-guided behavior we used the simple, rapid, and highly reproducible "dipstick" assay, described previously (![]()
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After 24 hr of starvation, 210-day post-eclosion transheterozygous progeny were tested for responsiveness to benzaldehyde, a repellent odorant, exactly as described by ![]()
Statistical analyses:
The avoidance scores of transheterozygous genotypes were analyzed by two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), with Genotype and Sex the fixed cross-classified main effects. Sums of squares were partitioned into sources (degrees of freedom) attributable to Genotype (65), Sex (1), Genotype x Sex interaction (65), and Error (1188). As this is a fixed effects model, the error mean square was used as the denominator for all F-ratio tests of significance. To analyze epistatic effects between smi loci, we could not simply compare the responses of double heterozygotes with the single heterozygotes of smi lines with Sam, because the effect of P[lArB] insert copy number (2 vs. 1) could be confounding. Rather, the correct control for this analysis is measurement of the deviation from the average of all other transheterozygotes with the two single inserts being compared. Thus, the general combining ability (GC A) of a mutation is its average avoidance score as a transheterozygote with all other mutations, expressed as the deviation from the overall mean (![]()
This fixed effects half-diallel corresponds to Method 4, Model I of ![]()
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(1) |
T is twice the sum of mean avoidance score values of all heterozygotes, and n is the number of mutant lines (see also
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(2) |
The significance of the overall GC A, SC A, GC A x Sex, and SC A x Sex effects was tested using an F variance ratio test statistic with the error mean square as the denominator. Standard errors of individual GC A and SC A effects were computed according to the formulae given by ![]()
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| RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
|---|
The effects of 12 P -element insertional mutations with homozygous effects on olfactory behavior were evaluated in all possible double heterozygote combinations, in a half-diallel design. The mean avoidance responses to benzaldehyde, averaged over sexes, are shown for each of the 66 transheterozygote genotypes in Table 1. The analysis of variance of these data is given in Table 2. The differences in mean avoidance responses among the heterozygous genotypes were highly significant (P = 0.0001). There was also significant sexual dimorphism in avoidance response to benzaldehyde, averaged over all genotypes (P = 0.0009), with a mean male avoidance score of 4.1 and a mean female score of 3.9. Sexual dimorphism for olfactory avoidance response has been observed previously for homozygous P -element insertional mutations (![]()
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Variation among the transheterozygous genotypes can arise from two sources: variation in mean heterozygous effects of the different mutations, and variation from epistatic interactions. Because all P -element insertions are in the same inbred strain, all genetic variation among the genotypes is attributable to one of these two sources, with no confounding effects contributed by the background genotype. Classical diallel cross analysis enables us to separate heterozygous from epistatic effects by partitioning the variation among double heterozygous genotypes into their general (GC A) and specific (SC A) combining abilities. As mentioned above, the GC A of a mutation is an estimate of its mean heterozygous effect in the background of each of the other mutations. Estimates of the GC A of each smi mutation, expressed as deviations from the overall mean of the population of heterozygous genotypes, are given in Table 1. For comparison, also given in Table 1 are the mean avoidance scores of each smi mutation, at the same concentration of odorant used to assess transheterozygote olfactory behavior (HOM; ![]()
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The overall mean avoidance score of the transheterozygous genotypes, 3.99 ± 0.08 (Table 1), is significantly higher than that of the Sam; ry 506 strain, 3.65 ± 0.08 (![]()
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The SC A of a pair of mutations reflects the extent to which the mean avoidance score of the double heterozygote, expressed as a deviation from the mean of the total population of heterozygous genotypes, departs from that expected given the sum of the GC As of the two mutant parents. Typically, diallel crosses are made among inbred lines that each vary at a number of loci affecting the measured trait, and significant SC A effects can only be attributed to nonadditive interactions in general, including dominance and epistasis (![]()
We observed highly significant SC A effects (P = 0.0025, Table 3) for olfactory avoidance among the transheterozygote genotypes. This observation is not a scale effect. The effect of SC A was also highly significant if log, square root, and square transformations are applied to the data (data not shown). This suggests that epistatic interactions among loci affecting olfactory behavior are very common, because we have sampled only a small fraction of the total number of possible genotypes at 12 loci, each with two alleles (
= 3.8%). To determine which interacting mutations contributed to the overall variation in SC A, we determined for which transheterozygote lines SC A effects are significantly different from zero. The results are given in Table 4. Nine transheterozygous crosses reveal statistically significant epistatic interactions between smi loci. In addition, the smi98B/smi60E transheterozygote has an SC A value (-0.251) that is nearly formally significant (P = 0.063). In five of the nine statistically significant cases, the difference between the observed and expected avoidance scores (SC A) is negative; i.e., the avoidance response of the double heterozygote is more mutant than would be expected given the average degrees of dominance of both parents. In four cases, the SC A estimates were positive, indicating better olfactory responses of the hybrid offspring than expected from the average heterozygous effects of parental mutations. It should be noted that all of the transheterozygotes show avoidance scores within wild-type range, i.e., complementation, but it is the quantitative analysis of the degree of complementation that reveals epistatic effects. The negative and positive interactions are quantitative genetic analogues of mutations that enhance or suppress, respectively, the effects of other mutations affecting the same phenotype.
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The observed epistatic effects are quite large; the mean of the absolute values of significant SC A effects is 0.34. This value is of the same magnitude as the mean of the absolute values of significant GC A effects (0.23), and is one-half of the environmental standard deviation. However, it is clear that these "large" quantitative effects are very subtle in absolute terms and cannot be discerned without quantitative genetic analysis of the phenotypes, or in variable genetic backgrounds. The magnitude of the epistatic effects are not necessarily correlated with the size of the homozygous mutant effects. smi loci with relatively small effects on olfactory behavior of homozygotes, e.g., smi21F and smi45E (![]()
The pattern of interactions observed is interesting. Of the 12 smi loci, 10 interact with at least one other. Epistatic interactions between eight smi loci can be represented in a simple interaction diagram (Figure 1). smi60E and smi61A interact, but are independent of the others. It is possible that smi98B interacts with smi60E (the P value of the SC A is on the borderline of formal statistical significance), which would place 11 of the 12 smi genes in two interacting groups. It is somewhat surprising that the mutation that interacts most extensively with other smi mutants, smi21F, has itself very weak homozygous effects. The mutant phenotype of this gene is only apparent at a low concentration of benzaldehyde and is strongly sexually dimorphic (only females display aberrant olfactory responses; males are not significantly different from wild type) (![]()
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These loci represent only a small sample of the genes that affect olfactory behavior. The frequency with which smi lines were detected in our previous P -element mutagenesis screen indicated that ~4% of the Drosophila genome participates in shaping odor-guided behavior (![]()
In recent years, other investigators have identified olfactory mutants in D. melanogaster, mostly with mutations located on the X chromosome (![]()
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Because each of the smi genes used in this study is tagged by a P element, it will, in principle, be possible in future studies to characterize their expression products and to obtain an understanding of the molecular basis for the observed genetic interactions. Moreover, our ability to use coisogenic P[lArB]-insertion lines for the characterization of networks of interacting genes in the olfactory subgenome will enable the future identification of new olfactory genes by virtue of epistatic interactions with known smi genes. Thus, these experiments pave the road for the use of quantitative genetic analysis of subtle phenotypes as a tool for targeted gene discovery.
| FOOTNOTES |
|---|
1 Present address: Department of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84332-5305. ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
We thank DR. RICHARD F. LYMAN for assistance in analyzing the data and J. BRANT HACKETT for technical assistance. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (DC-02485, GM-45344, and GM-45146) and the U.S. Army Research Office (DAAH04-96-1-0096).
Manuscript received July 14, 1997; Accepted for publication January 5, 1998.
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and
symbols indicate epistatic effects that suppress and enhance the homozygous mutant phenotype, respectively. Two loci, smi60E and smi61A, form an independent pair with a positive epistatic effect (not shown).


