Drunken fruit flies help researchers find potential targets for drugs against alcoholism

A group of drunken fruit flies have found researchers from North Carolina State University in Boston and has contributed to entire networks of genes, including humans, which play a central role in the behavior of drinking. This discovery, published in the October 2009 print edition of the Journal GENETICS, provides a crucial explanation for why some people seem to tolerate alcohol better than others, and a potential target for drugs for the prevention or the Elimination of alcohol is. Furthermore, this discovery sheds new light on many negative effects of alcohol consumption that lead as liver damage. "Translational studies such as these that the findings of model organisms, ideas about human biology can be applied to understand ourselves, behave balance between nature and culture, why we are like we do, for better or worse and what makes us move, "said Robert Anholt, professor of biology and genetics at North Carolina State University, Director of the WM Keck Center for Behavioral Biology, and one of the leading scientists involved in the job.

To make this discovery, Anholt and his colleagues measured the amount of time to lose in fruit flies for postural control under the influence of alcohol. At the same time were the changes in gene expression, all the flies "registered. With the help of statistical methods to identify genes that work together, scientists have specific genes that play a role in the 'adjustment related to exposure to alcohol is exactly determine the prescribed rules. Armed with this information on fruit flies, scientists to determine whether the same genes that contribute to patterns of alcohol consumption in humans. are indeed an expression of the human homologue of an essential gene in Drosophila may be directly linked to alcohol consumption in humans.

"From a scientific standpoint, research of this kind is almost intoxicating," said Mark Johnston, editor of the journal Genetics. "We have known for some time now that genetics plays a role in alcohol but now we actually know some of the genes that are involved. In consequence of this work, we have a potential therapeutic target to cure this devastating disease. "