fruitless is essential for male Aedes aegypti mosquito attraction to female flight sounds
4 affiliations
- 1Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
- 2Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
- 3Department of Biology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America
- 4Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Abstract
Male mosquitoes locate females through strong and innate attraction to female flight sounds, the basis of mating in the world’s deadliest animal. In contrast, females do not show any sound attraction behaviors. Despite being documented for almost a century, the molecular underpinnings of these behavioral dimorphisms remain unknown. Here, we found that by disrupting the male-specific isoform of fruitless (referred to as fruM) in Aedes aegypti, fruM mutant males show complete abolition of sound attraction behaviors, resulting in failure of mutant males to locate females for mating. We identified strong fruitless expression in control male ears, with the loss of FruM severely disrupting mutant male ability to amplify female flight sounds. fruM mutant male ears also propagate frequency-specific, sound-evoked electrical signals at about one-sixth the magnitude of control males, significantly reducing the amount of auditory information relayed to the brain. fruitless thus plays a significant role in determining proper male peripheral hearing function underlying mating. Transcriptomic analyses of mosquito ears identified essential hearing genes under the transcriptional influence of FruM via direct or indirect actions, thus shaping male-specific hearing cellular machineries that support male attraction to female flight sounds. Our work demonstrates that FruM commands male-specific hearing behaviors involved in mating by directly controlling the earliest stages of auditory organ performance, sound amplification and acoustic signal detection. Our findings show that FruM is essential for male-specific reproductive behaviors in mosquitoes.
Male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes locate females by listening for their flight sounds. This study shows that disruption of the male specific isoform of fruitless, a key sex differentiation gene, alters the male hearing system and suppresses responses to female flight sounds.
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BibTeX
@article{loh2026fruitless,
title = {{fruitless is essential for male Aedes aegypti mosquito attraction to female flight sounds}},
author = {YuMin M. Loh and Alberto J. Thornton and WenWei Loh and Tai-Ting Lee and Wan-Tze Chen and Yifeng Y. J. Xu and Jia Xin Yap and Yuichiro Tsuchiya and Daniel F. Eberl and Matthew P. Su and Azusa Kamikouchi},
journal = {PLOS Biology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pbio.3004041},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3004041},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - fruitless is essential for male Aedes aegypti mosquito attraction to female flight sounds
AU - YuMin M. Loh
AU - Alberto J. Thornton
AU - WenWei Loh
AU - Tai-Ting Lee
AU - Wan-Tze Chen
AU - Yifeng Y. J. Xu
AU - Jia Xin Yap
AU - Yuichiro Tsuchiya
AU - Daniel F. Eberl
AU - Matthew P. Su
AU - Azusa Kamikouchi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
JO - PLOS Biology
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3004041
UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3004041
AB - Male mosquitoes locate females through strong and innate attraction to female flight sounds, the basis of mating in the world’s deadliest animal. In contrast, females do not show any sound attraction behaviors. Despite being documented for almost a century, the molecular underpinnings of these behavioral dimorphisms remain unknown. Here, we found that by disrupting the male-specific isoform of fruitless (referred to as fruM) in Aedes aegypti, fruM mutant males show complete abolition of sound attraction behaviors, resulting in failure of mutant males to locate females for mating. We identified strong fruitless expression in control male ears, with the loss of FruM severely disrupting mutant male ability to amplify female flight sounds. fruM mutant male ears also propagate frequency-specific, sound-evoked electrical signals at about one-sixth the magnitude of control males, significantly reducing the amount of auditory information relayed to the brain. fruitless thus plays a significant role in determining proper male peripheral hearing function underlying mating. Transcriptomic analyses of mosquito ears identified essential hearing genes under the transcriptional influence of FruM via direct or indirect actions, thus shaping male-specific hearing cellular machineries that support male attraction to female flight sounds. Our work demonstrates that FruM commands male-specific hearing behaviors involved in mating by directly controlling the earliest stages of auditory organ performance, sound amplification and acoustic signal detection. Our findings show that FruM is essential for male-specific reproductive behaviors in mosquitoes. Male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes locate females by listening for their flight sounds. This study shows that disruption of the male specific isoform of fruitless, a key sex differentiation gene, alters the male hearing system and suppresses responses to female flight sounds.
SN - 1545-7885
SN - 1544-9173
ER -