Investigating the function of phospholipid flippases in Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila have three receptor families that detect odours in their environment. In order to function properly one of these families, the odorant receptor family, requires the phospholipid flippase protein, dATP8B. Phospholipid flippases maintain the composition of important lipids in cellular membranes. My research showed that that when the dATP8B protein is non-functional, the amount of odorant receptor in olfactory cell membranes is substantially reduced, causing an olfactory defect. The functions of the other five Drosophila flippases were also explored and putative roles for three of these were found.