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/2017/07/19/145888.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/19/145888.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 loco-motor behavior showed that counter-clockwise walking and clockwise walking were the two main components of locomotion in circular arenas. Genetic analysis revealed that while wild-type genetic background suppressed the number of counter-clockwise and clockwise walks during five minutes of locomotion, the white (w+) gene promoted persistent one-way walking by increasing the maximal duration of one-way walking. These results support a pleiotropic function of w+ in promoting persistent one-way walking in addition to eye pigmentation.