The buzz about cheapdate

Fly people have a notoriously off-putting way about naming genes. A few places like FlyNome http://www.flynome.com attempt to explain the origins of cryptic phenotype descriptors such as 18-wheeler, ken and barbie, and wunen (which features, of course, aimlessly migrating germ cells much like the wandering pig, Wunen, from Chinese legend). Regardless, outsiders often find themselves doing a fair bit of head-scratching when trying to decipher Drosophila genetics.Such behavior may be intentional, but it is by no means relegated to fly cliques. Frank Kelly Rich edits Modern Drunkard Magazine, the voice of the informed boozehound. He says he noticed a similar tactic while traveling the bars of the world. "There was, especially in certain regions like Boston ... a language, like a sublanguage to the bars, which you'll find in prisons and ethnic enclaves anywhere. ...It was a way of making outsiders feel uncomfortable," says Rich. "It's like the cockney slang, if you've ever a cockney bar."Rich created a glossary of lush lingo in Modern Drunkard's April/May issue http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/05_04/05-04_talk.htm and stumbled over an interesting intersection between drunkspeak and Drosophila nomenclature. In addition to defining a chimneyfish (a hard-drinking chain smoker), and pocket forensics (the process of reviewing matchbooks and receipts to piece together a lost evening), Rich picked up on the "cheapdate gene," described as "a gene that causes fruit flies, and some humans, to more readily succumb to the effects of alcohol."Rich says he had heard the term in the news before. He and his staff often troll medical reports for studies demonstrating the benefits of drinking. To get into his drunk-talk listing, however, the terms had to be used in bars. In an interesting linguistic backcross, bar culture readopted the terminology from fly geneticists. "It's funny how it came back. The scientists drew the description from the bars, the common term, cheap date, and they applied it to the fly studies. And the drunks picked it up," says Rich. And he takes no wonder to the relative obscurity of the reference: "Drunks are pretty well read these days."While that may be, even well-read drunks are not immune to the sometimes aggravating vagaries of fly-naming conventions. Apparently cheapdate, as reported by Ulrike Heberlein in 1998 (Cell, 93:997–1007) refers not to a gene, but rather to an allele for a previously discovered gene called amnesiac. Heberlein's University of California, San Francisco, team discovered the cheapdate mutant due to its poor performance in the "inebriometer," a device designed to gauge a fly's ability to remain standing in the presence of alcohol vapor. Apparently six legs aren't much better than two in certain situations.Heberlein credits Monica Moore, the lead author on the 1998 paper, for choosing the mutation's name. Being of Asian descent, Moore has a flushing reaction to alcohol that earned her a similar nickname from her husband. But rather than a deficiency in aldehyde dehydrogenase, which is likely the root of Moore's sensitivity, the cheapdate mutation affects a neuropeptide that shows some similarity to a vertebrate peptide that activates adenylate cyclase in the cAMP pathway.Heberlein notes some similarities to mammalian pathways involved in alcohol metabolism, but alas, no known human form of the cheapdate gene per se has been found. Nevertheless, she's made reference in talks to pop culture's adoption and adaptation of the mutant. Though confusion may be common, it's not the intent, she says. Drosophila naming is about having fun and being creative.Rich says there's no fly in his ointment regarding the gene/mutation mixup. Most terms in his lexicon for the inebriated derive from fiction, popular legend, and of course, exaggeration. And now that it's on his list, it's likely not going anywhere: "It's already in the common parlance, so there's no stopping it."

The buzz about cheapdate

Fly people have a notoriously off-putting way about naming genes.

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