Drosophila_20min_courtship

We hypothesized that social interactions, such as those involved in reproductive behaviors, would lead to immediate and assayable changes in gene expression that may have important effects on individual reproductive success and fitness through alterations in physiology or via short-term or long-term changes in nervous system function. Five-day-old males were exposed or mock-exposed to a virgin female fly for 20 min. Exposed males that courted, as well as mock-exposed males, were collected for RNA extraction of head tissue. Five samples for each treatment were hybridized to Affymetrix Drosophila Genome arrays for a total of 15 arrays. Data were analyzed using dChip PM, dChip PM-MM, MAS5.0, R/Bioconductor GC-RMA, and GeneSpring GC-RMA.