Measuring attraction to nicotine. E. Shimakawa, K. Kilbey, J. De Mello. Dept Biol, Chaminade Univ, Honolulu, HI.

   This study was undertaken to determine whether the Olfactory Trap Assay (Woodard, 1989), originally designed to measure the attraction of D. melanogaster to specific odorants, could be adapted to study the attraction of flies to nicotine. A selection of 13 mutants including 2 Dieldrin resistance mutants and strains containing behavioral/learning mutants latheo (2 strains), scab (1 strain), alpha-Adaptin (1), pale (1), dunce (1) and amnesiac (1); and Canton S were each tested for their attraction to nicotine-containing baits of agarose and of fly food by measuring the number of flies attracted to the trap at 48 hours. Most of the test combinations indicated a slight average preference for nicotine-containing baits over the respective control baits: out of the 28 strain/bait-type combinations, 22 exhibited mild nicotine preference. One strain, yellow¹ , was significantly attracted to the nicotine over the control, (Students t test, p = 0.03) and 2 others -- 1 containing the mutant scb⁰¹²⁸⁸ and the other containing alpha-Adaptin⁰⁶⁶⁹⁴ -- were nearly so (p=0.08 and p= 0.09, respectively). Thus, the assay will be a useful tool in identifying mutations affecting the early stages of nicotine addiction. This work was supported by USDE # P217A990159.