The Common Fruit Fly Drosophila Melanogaster

In this experiment we tested to see what the offspring of an unknown cross of an F1 generation would produce. After observing the F2 generation and recording the data we found some of the Drosophila showed mutations, two in particular. The mutations were the apterus wings, and sepia eyes. After collecting our data through observation, a Chi-test was conducted resulting in a Chi-value of 5.1 and a p-value of .2. Since the p-value was greater than 0.05, there was no significant change in the data. This proved that the Drosophila flies still followed the Mendelian genetics of a 9:3:3:1 ratio.

Brennan K, Tateson R, Lewis K, Arias AM. A Functional Analysis of Notch Mutations in Drosophila. Genetics. 1997;147(1):177-188.

Genes can either be sex-linked or autosomal. If a gene appears mostly in one sex chances are the gene is sex-linked and if it appears frequently in both sexes it is most likely autosomal. Using Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the fruit fly, we will determine whether the gene is sex-linked or autosomal. Drosophila melanogasters have a relatively short life span and are an excellent organism for genetic studies because it has simple food requirements, occupies little space, is hardy, completes its life cycle in about 12 days at room temperature, produces large numbers of offspring, can be immobilized readily for examination and

Gregory Mendel is the father of genetics, he was able to recognize to principles of inheritance: the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment. Fruit fly is a small type of fly; it is in most cases found near rotten or unripe fruits, this fly as been used extensively in genetics. Genetic recombination and sex linkage led to the use of drosophila in genetics also its relatively small size, sort generation time and easiness in culturing it.

The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, became an important model organism for the study of human genetics and for the establishment of more biological principles (Roberts 2006). This organism became a good candidate to work with because of its short life cycle, its inexpensiveness, small size, its genetic variability, easily cultured and its ability to produce many offspring. Nichols and Phandey made an important discovery: approximately 75% of disease-causing genes in humans are homologous to genes found in Drosophila melanogaster (Russell and Tickoo). This is an important observation, because it made it possible to discover treatments for human diseases. For example, the fly has a tumor gene homologous to the human LATS1 gene.

The Drosophila melanogaster is a fruit fly with a very short life cycle. They can be winged or wingless, and have red eyes or white eyes. The different options are called alleles. Alleles are the variants of a specific gene, and one is received from each parent on each chromosome. (“What Are Dominant and Recessive?”). It was chosen to use winged females and wingless males to predict the offspring in this experiment. The winged allele is dominant, meaning it only needs one allele to physically appear. The wingless allele is recessive, which gets covered up by the dominant allele (“Fruit Fly Genetics”). Each trait has two alleles in the flies’

Genetics shows us that we inherit traits in many different ways. A perfect example to show us the different ways we inherit traits is fruit flies. Fruit flies are commonly used by scientists to conduct genetic experiments due to their reaction to the experiment being very quick. Scientists mainly look at how the flies inherit basic traits such as brown body color, or red eyes(basic trait flies are known as wild-type flies) from their parents, but sometimes they can come across some abnormal traits. Some of these abnormal traits include having a yellow body color or having curly shaped wings and have made scientists wonder how the flies have inherited these specific traits. So how do the flies inherit

“The cellular machinery that copies DNA sometimes makes mistakes,” there are about 37.5 trillion cells in the human body, and their job is to make copies of DNA, yet sometimes the cells make a mistake and either switch, remove, or add a gene. This does not occur often, so when it does these mistakes are called mutations. Another reason that signifies why mutations are unusual is because mutations are mostly recessive traits. In an online article, Fruit Fly Phenotypes it informs us about fruit flies and some of the mutations, “This mutation is a recessive trait, meaning that the fly won't express the gene unless it gets it from both parents.” In other words some mutations are recessive traits meaning both parents must have the trait for the offspring to have the mutation as well. According to a lab, Genetic Variation in Monsters, “Recessive traits only show up if dominant traits are absent and are represented by a lowercase letter. Dominant traits show up in the offspring whenever present.” This is an explanation of what recessive and dominant traits are, in quotes it says that dominant trait are found anywhere where at least

Drosophila melanogastor were one of the first organisms chosen to be analyzed and study, since they are the work force of the genetics research. Back in the early 1900s, researchers such as T.H. Morgan, H.J. Muller, E. Weischaus, and C. Nisslein-Volhard were able to use the organisms to determine how genes are inherited, how radiation causes DNA damage, and there are genes that controls human development. In 2000, scientists found over a hundred genes that can be used to study human diseases because they found a way to sequence the drosophila genome. This organism has been used for scientific research for decades and is continued to be used because they help scientists and researchers understand how human processes and their disorders. With the experiment, crossing the flies is to demonstrate the inheritance pattern of a single and double trait.

In this experiment, two types of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) were used: mutant and wild type. The wild-type flies had normal shaped wings and red eyes, while the mutant had either vestigial (short) wings or white (blind) eyes. The strains used for each mutation were W118 (white eyes) and strain 432 (vestigial wings). The flies with the vestigial mutation had the allele genotype of Vg-Vg- for female and the males had the allele genotype of Vg-Y. The flies with the white-eyed mutation had the female genotype of XwXw and the males had the genotype XwY. The population was created by crossing equal numbers of WT and Mutant flies. The populations were allowed to randomly mate for 10 generations in order to reach Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. We used half of the original population for the experiment and the other

The Tallahassee Democrat News, a site that is part of the USA Today Network, reports current news on scientific advancements. The article, Fruit Flies Yield Clues On Cancerous Tumor Hotspots, offers an overview of the research done by Yoichiro Tamori, Wu-Min Deng, and Emiko Suzuki, who have discovered that epithelial tissues in fruit flies can be cancerous. The reasoning behind studying fruit flies is because, “Flies and humans have a lot in common in terms of genes and pathways for developing cancer” (Haughney). In the article, the researchers explain that the tumor hot spots, which appear to be near the epithelial tissues, found in fruit flies have also been found in several human cancers, “These tumor hotspots all involved an oncogenic signaling pathway that have been shown to play a part in many types of human cancers” (Haughney). However, the scientists do assure the reader that in distinct areas of the epithelial tissue there are tumor cold spots. Without a doubt, this is the beginning of a prolonged experiment, “The more we know, the better we can get at treating and preventing cancer” (Haughney).

This paper will discuss how phenotypes are driven by DNA inheritance in offspring by the genes known as alleles. Each parent provides an allele although on allele is hidden in one parent and can be passed on to his or her offspring. The information presented in the monohybrid cross that shows where one parent has the hidden allele of a gene that carries the trait of orange eyes that disappears and reemerges later in the genetic make-up of an offspring. The inheritance in the offspring is driven by the DNA of that individuals parents and the genetic traits one is born with are decided by the dominant and recessive genes of his or her parents (www.nature.com, 2014).

The world of genomes is more similar to the art of coding, than many may believe. For starters, they both share the ability of creating information that does an overwhelmingly important role in fabricating and supporting the final project - which in a genetical case is all living organisms. The complex code of genetics has been a pivoting factor in countless research done by scientists, as it is the literal makeup of each and every living organism, each unique in their own way. Research in genetics has been around for more than 150 years, and although the study is something relatively old and a seemingly immaculate process, there are cases where the result is not always as one would hope. Unfortunately, if a mutation occurs in the

Introduction: In this experiment we followed the inheritance of mutant and wild-type alleles of the eye color gene in Drosophila. The wild type for eye color is known as brick red. It is created by the combination of two types of pigments, which are pteridines (red pigments) and ommochromes (brown pigments). Two parallel biochemical pathways produce these pigments.

Thomas Hunt Morgan won the Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1933. He won this prize for studying the genetics of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). Thomas won this award for his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosomes in heredity. His lab constructed the first genetic maps of chromosomes. He was educated at the University of Kentucky, where he took his B.S. degree in 1886, subsequently doing postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied morphology with W. K. Brooks, and physiology with H. Newell Martin. He used the common fruit fly as a model organism for genetic studies. The reason that fruit flies are so widely used is because they are easily cultured in the lab, have a short generation time, have a diploid number of 8 (4 homologous pairs of chromosome), are inexpensive, have easily seen traits, and can