PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chengfeng Xiao
AU  - Shuang Qiu
AU  - R Meldrum Robertson
TI  - Persistent one-way walking in a circular arena in <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em> Canton-S strain
AID  - 10.1101/145888
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 145888
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/06/145888.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/06/145888.full
AB  - We describe persistent one-way walking of Drosophila melanogaster in a circular arena. Wild-type Canton-S adult flies walked in one direction, counter-clockwise or clockwise, for minutes, whereas white-eyed mutant w1118 changed directions frequently. Computational analysis of locomotor behavior showed that counter-clockwise walking and clockwise walking were the two main components of locomotion, and that pausing was more frequently associated with directional persistence but not directional change. Genetic analysis revealed that while wild-type genetic background primarily controlled the number of counter-clockwise walking and clockwise walking during five minutes of locomotion, the white (w+) gene promoted persistent one-way walking by increasing the number of pauses, increasing the maximal duration of one-way walking, and reducing the path length in five minutes. These results support a pleiotropic function of w+ in promoting persistent one-way walking in addition to eye pigmentation.