Drosophila Introduction Flashcards
Live stocks of flies are kept at what temperature?
15 to 25 degrees
At 25 degrees how long is the fly life cycle?
10 days
At 18 degrees how long is the fly life cycle?
21 days
How long does an adult fly live for?
60 days
Who discovered the white eyed fly and when?
Morgan discovered them in 1910
What did sturtevant do in 1913?
Constructed the first genetic map where genes are arranged in a linear order
List 6 technological/ methological advances which can be used on flies
1) P-element transformation
2) Enhancer trap
3) Gal4/UAS gene misexpression
4) FLP/FRT clonal mutant analysis
5) RNAi - ex vivo and in vivo
6) Omic technologies ie transcriptome
How many genes do drosophila have?
17684
How many offspring can a female and male fly produce in less than weeks?
> 200
List some of the actions flies use during courtship
Orientation Tapping Wing vibration Licking Attempted copulation
Drosophila courtship can be described as what?
Reproducible behaviour
Genetically encoded
They do not learn it
Hub cells secrete which factor?
Unpaired
What is sex peptide?
Sticks to the tails of sperm
Acts on the female brain to make them stop mating with other flies ie no longer receptive to the courtship dance
Why is drosophila sperm so long?
To hold more sex peptide
What is endo-reduplication?
replication of the nuclear genome in the absence of mitosis, which leads to elevated nuclear gene content and polyploidy
What are nurse cells?
a cell which provides food, helps other cells and provides stability to their neighboring cells
What are polytene chromosomes?
Large chromosomes with thousands of DNA strands
They are produced when repeated rounds of DNA replication without cell division forms a giant chromosome
In polytene chromosomes where are the active genes?
In the interbands
Polytene genes make it possible to see what?
It is possible to see some changes in gene active during metamorphis
Where are maternal proteins and RNAs made?
In nurse cells
What occurs between ring canals?
Cytoplasmic dumping
Where is bicoid moved towards in the oocyte?
Towards the middle
Where is Oskar mRNA moved towards in the oocyte?
Towards the outside
What is the role of the vetelline membrane?
Hydrophobic, protects the egg from drying out
Describe early fly division in respect to their nuclear divisions
1) After 70 mins a syncitium forms
2) After 90 mins the nuclei migrate
3) After 2 hours the syncitial blastoderm forms
What is the role of Hh signalling in flies?
Patterning of segments and leg/wing discs
What is the role of Wingless in flies?
Segment and Imaginal disc specification
What is the role of delta and serrate in flies?
Specification of oocyte polarity
What is the role of TGFa in flies?
Polarisation, eye development and wing vein differentiation
What is the role of TGFb in flies?
Patterning of the DV and imaginal discs
