The Clock Protein in Drosophila

The Drosophila, also known as the fruit fly, are famous for being ideal in the area of genetic research. The fruit fly has a fairly short life cycle beginning with the female fruit fly laying eggs (typically on fermenting fruit). In only a single day, the fertilized eggs turn into tiny, white, wormlike larva which burrow into the fruit and eat for 4-5 days. The larva then crawls to a dry spot and becomes encased in a pupa where it becomes an adult within another 4-5 days. In just 8-12 short hours after appearing from the pupa case, the female fruit fly can mate and stores enough sperm to fertilize 500 eggs. Their short life cycle is only one of the reasons that they are useful in genetic research. The female lays many eggs that

The goal of this study was to induce a deletion in the DMAP1 gene on chromosome two in Drosophila melanogaster through P-element mobilization. The DMAP1 gene may be an essential gene, however not much is known about it. We attempted to uncover the function of DMAP1 by creating a series of genetic crosses and selecting for brown-eyed non-stubble male flies that may have the deletion. To test whether these flies had the deletion, we produced PCR products and ran them on an agarose gel, which resulted as inconclusive. We created a balanced stock of flies homozygous for the deletion to see if the

Circadian rhythms occur every 24 hours; an example of a circadian rhythm is the sleep-waking cycle. We are diurnal animals who are active during the daytime and asleep at night, other animals are nocturnal they are active at night but asleep during the day. The circadian rhythm depends on the interaction of physiological and psychological processes to be tuned into the sleep-waking cycle so energy is provided when needed. As diurnal humans we have a fairly stable sleep pattern with the time we go to sleep and the time we wake up, this consistency suggests an internal mechanism controls sleep, endogenous pacemaker. However, this can be overridden by external factors, exogenous zeitgebers.

The circadian rhythm is very important in analyzing ones sleep pattern like when they are a sleep pattern like when they are a sleep and when they are awake. One’s normal circadian clock is based on light-dark times over 24 hours.()

Russell Foster is a British professor and a circadian neuroscientist at Brasenose College. He studies the sleep cycles of the brain. He and his group were credited for discovering photosensitive ganglion cells in the mammalian retina. This discovery will help to find more information about the circadian rhythm system. In 1980, Foster graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in Zoology. He has earned many awards for his work and is also the author of a few books.

Heterozygotes, which have the wild type phenotype, have normal sight which gives them the advantage of finding a mate and have a better success with attracting a mate with their courtship song (Kyriacou et al, 1978). The male heterozygous Drosophila had a better advantage at mating than the homozygotes, which were the ebony, and therefore we predict there will be more wild type by the end of the experiment.

Dobzhansky, T. (1930). The manifold effects of the genes stubble and stubbloid in Drosophila melanogaster. Z. indukt. Abstamm.- u. VererbLehre 54: 427-457.

The circadian clock in monarch not only determine when an adult butterfly will emerge from its chrysalis, but it is also involved in the time-compensated sun compass. Previous studies have shown that circadian clock provides the internal timing deceive that allows the butterfly to correct their fight orientation. If the circadian clock in the monarch is destroyed, it destroys the migrant’s ability to calibrate their orientation based on time of day. The circadian clock mechanism is known in the butterfly, it relies on a negative transcriptional feedback loop that involves the transcription factors CLOCK (CLK) and CYCLE (CYC), which drive the expression of period(per), timeless (tim) and a vertebrate-like cryptochrome, designated cry2. The translated

B. Biological clocks are an instinctive and internal timing mechanism that is made from special molecules.

The pineal gland also plays a key role in regulating animal circadian rhythms, which vary across species. Melatonin is synthesized from serotonin by N-acetyltransferase. In mammals, N-acetyltransferase activity is stimulated in the CNS by sympathetic nerves stemming from the superior cervical ganglion, whereas in birds, the N-acetyltransferase “control switch” appears to lie within the gland itself (Deguchi, 1979).

Understanding the monarch butterfly can help allude the neural circuitry involved in migratory vertebrates. In the past 15 years, butterfly migration research has progressed tremendously. The discovery of the time-compensated compass along with the combination of its circadian clock has allowed researchers to begin searching for the neural mechanism’s involved in the migrant’s flight. Even though the neurons involved in the sun compass are being better understood, the field still has a long way to go. Migrant researchers are looking next to understand the neural circuitry between the antennae and the central complex as well as the discover what role the novel function of antennal clock has in the sun compass concerning orientation. There is also the pursuit in understanding the neuronal level in regards to the proper function of the antennal genetic circadian clock and azimuth of the sun and how they are integrated to produce flight

Normally, cicada’s sleep cycle varies from thirteen to seventeen years, yet the currently emerging group are four years ahead of their cycle and shouldn’t have awoken until two-thousand twenty-one. Scientists have theories for this occurrence such as the warmer temperature speeding the insects “Biological clock”, but this does not explain everything.

The mechanisms that influence the behavior, physiological stress, and fitness of natural populations may be altered due to the interaction with a species’ temporal niche. Defined as the entrainment of 24-h rhythms whose time is characterized by the period and the phase of the light: dark cycle (Smarr et al. 2013), the temporal niche characterizes the time of day an individual is active, which in turn defines the environmental conditions the individual is subjugated to, as well as the timing of interspecific competitive and predator-prey interactions (Gaston et al. 2014). If an organism is exposed to a zeitgeber that produces repetitive and predictable environmental changes, the individual can shift their temporal niche due to entrainment processes.

This simply means that the body has a natural clock that runs it. The circadian timing system is no longer a twenty-four hour cycle, but it is just more of an individual timing system (Williams 111). As people have developed and changed, the system is no longer twenty-four hours, but it has become more personalized according to the individual. Circadian rhythms have a large impact on our sleeping patterns and if the system is changed, it can be the beginning cause of sleep deprivation.

 Jet Lag: internal biological clocks collide with external clocks as a result of moving across several time zones.