Fruit Fly Lab Report

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Introduction Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the fruit fly, is an extraordinary organism that has been used for genetic experimentation due to its fast life cycle and the fact that it is very inexpensive to acquire and feed. The Drosophila life cycle is short and completed within 10-15 days. It begins with an egg that produces larvae, becomes pupa and eventually develops into an adult. After roughly ten hours after emerging, adult flies are ready for mating. 24 hours after mating, the females lay eggs. To begin the mating experiment, virgin females must be used. As a rule, females do not mate within 12 hours of hatching so it is possible to shake out all the older flies and collect only female virgins within the 12 hour period (Demerec and Kaufmann 1996). These fruit flies are essential for understanding and practicing genetics, for they can…show more content…
By evaluating the gene product and observing its expression, the determination of how active a gene is can be assed. This can be calculated mathematically using numbers of observed traits among the generations devised in the lab. These results showed up visually and were then recorded. Using microscopes in the lab, these visual traits were properly identified and noted. In simple Mendelian Inheritance, genotypes of parent generations are passed on and expressed in their offspring as phenotypes. Observing which genes are expressed can help determine if the alleles were dominant or recessive and whether or not they were autosomal (not sex linked). In other forms of inheritance, such as X-linked, the gene is on the X chromosome and therefore is passed on exclusively on the X chromosome. The inheritance pattern is altered from autosomal traits and is seen dominantly in males due to the fact that males only have one X chromosome. To tell whether a trait is X-linked or not, a reciprocal cross must be done (Klug et al

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