Drosophila Melanogaster

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Drosophila melanogaster
Introduction
Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly, has been used in studying genetics since the early 1900s, when Thomas Morgan began using them in genetic studies. Drosophila melanogaster is so commonly used for studying genetics for many reasons. One advantage of using the fruit fly is because its genome is rather small. Also, multiple generation experiments can be done fairly quickly due to the short life cycle of the fruit fly. Furthermore, the female fruit fly produces a large amount offspring. The fruit fly also has a complex phenotype with many morphological differences and the traits of the fruit fly are easily identifiable. It was because of these reasons that our class used fruit flies for our experiment. We tested mutations for curly wings, bar eyes, and white eyes. The offspring of the fruit flies were contained in vials, which were a result of “mystery crosses”. By scoring the fruit flies and setting up crosses, the experiment would show the phenotypic ratios of the offspring. By doing a reciprocal cross, where wild type males are crossed with mutant females and mutant males are crossed with wild type females, it would show the mode of transmission. The phenotypic ratios would allow us to conclude the mode of transmission and the genotypes of the parents from the tested offspring. A test cross was made to determine the genotypes of the parents. From this we hypothesized that the mutations for wing type, eye shape, and eye color are transmitted as sex-linked recessive traits....