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A Study On Drosophila Melanogaster

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Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster was used for this study for their fast reproduction cycles, fast regenerations, large amounts of offspring for each generation and their capability of living in a small limited space. The dominant or recessive genotype could be determining by the used of Mendelian genetic ratios for wild-type to mutant’s genes. The mutation that this study focuses on is the defects of the phenotypes in the common fruit fly, example; wing shape, wing sizes, body color and what the main focus of this experiment is dark eye pigment of the flies. These mutations were followed for three generations, collectable data for wild-type and mutants was obtained for each of the Drosophila melanogaster generations. The flies were …show more content…

Gender isn’t a key factor when it comes to determining a autosomal inheritance, Only sex-linked chromosomes like X or Y have an effect on the ratios for male and females having mutant alleles. This phenomenon is cause by the specific genome that each gender has, males have the XY chromosomes for sex and females have XX sex chromosomes. The reason for using Drosophila melanogaster flies is for their great genetics and fast reproduction that allows us to see in a short period of time the Mendelian genetic ratios from one generation to the other. Among this reason many others are in great importance as well, the common fruit fly has the same type of sex chromosomes as of humans, as mention previously in the text male flies have the same XY sex genes as male humans and same for female flies and female humans having XX sex genes. The fast regeneration, short life span and large number of offspring makes this specific organism a prime species to examine and study for better understanding of the Mendelian genetic ratios. Research was done on Drosophila melanogaster for the genetic analysis of sex chromosomes, meiotic mutations and their effect on recombination, disjunctions and their dominance (Baker and Carpenter, 1972). The mutation that is specific

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