Mapping of gene mutations in drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

In this experiment, mutant genes of a given unknown mutant strain of Drosophila melanogaster were mapped to specific chromosomes. Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly, was the appropriate choice for the organism to use in this specific experiment because of its relatively rapid life cycle of 10-14 days and because of the small amount of space and food neccessary for maintaining thousands of flies. The D. Melanogaster unknown strain specifically used in this experiment was arbitrarily named Amanita. This unknown was phenotypically characterized by dark body(head, thorax, and abdomen) as opposed to light body in the wild-type, white eyes as opposed to red eyes in the wild-type, and a wing with a shortened fourth longitudinal wing vein as opposed to a complete fourth longitudinal wing vein in the wild-type. All other traits were found to be the same as in wild-type D.melanogaster. Amanita was found to carry four mutant genes, two controlling eye color, one controlling body color and one controlling wing vein mutation.