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How has diversity of organismal morphs and life styles evolved? To tackle this question, we need to have an appropriate experimental organism. Drosophila (fruit fly) combines phenotypic diversity and technical advantages for experimental investigations. Using Drosophila species with various pigmentation patterns on their wings, we investigate gene expressions and functions by trangenesis and genome editing, and try to discover mechanisms of pattern formation and evolution. We aim for a general understanding of Drosophila biology ranging from its life history to evolution of gene regulation.

References

• Fukutomi Y, Matsumoto K, Agata K, Funayama N, Koshikawa S. Pupal development and pigmentation process of a polka-dotted fruit fly, Drosophila guttifera (Insecta, Diptera). Development Genes and Evolution 227: 171-180. (2017)
• Koshikawa S, Fukutomi Y, Matsumoto K. Drosophila guttifera as a model system for unraveling color pattern formation. In: Diversity and Evolution of Butterfly Wing Patterns: An Integrative Approach, Sekimura T, Nijhout HF (eds.) Springer. pp.287-301. (2017)
• Koshikawa S, Giorgianni MW, Vaccaro K, Kassner VA, Yoder JH, Werner T, Carroll SB. Gain of cis-regulatory activities underlies novel domains of wingless gene expression in Drosophila. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112: 7524-7529. (2015)
• Werner T*, Koshikawa S*, Williams TM, Carroll SB. *equal contribution. Generation of a novel wing colour pattern by the Wingless morphogen. Nature 464: 1143-1148. (2010)