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Why would a person who is majoring in Biotechnology study the genome of Drosophila?
I am doing an Internship this summer at a Fly Genetics Lab. I'm trying to figure out if others in the Biotech field are studying this and if there are any websites that may assist me.
Answer:
What the others have said is correct:
1) Many of Drosophila's genes have a human homologue with a similar or identical function.
2) Fly labs are far cheaper to run than mammalian cell and animal labs. The only thing cheaper is microbiology labs.
Drosophila as a model system is an incredibly powerful genetic paradigm. One can inexpensively introduce genes into the fly genome, knock them out, and trap regulatory sequences that drive genes - to name only a few. One of the other strongest advantages is that there are many lines created that have mix and matchable promoters and genes so you can pretty much express any you want, anywhere at any time in the fly development (see UAS-gal4 system). One can also make genetic mosaics using FLP-FRT mitotic recombination, so researchers can look at cells with genes knocked out in the context of wild type cells.
Perhaps the biggest advatage for Drosophila is biotechnology, though, is their use for genetic screens. If you want to find a gene involved in a certain process, you can mutate lines of flies (by feeding them chemical mutagens or irradiating them with X-rays) and then see how their phenotype changes.
For example, you have a fly model that mimicks a human disease. Let's say you introduced the disease form of amyloid precursor protein (the protein that aggregates during Alzheimer's Disease) into the fly and show that it reproduces the pathology. These flies become stupid(er) and maybe die early. You can then mutate them using your favorite mutation protocol. Then you can screen flies using some kind of high throughput phenotype assay, and look for lines that seem to overcome the disease phenotype. These flies probably had a compensatory mutation that reversed or ameliorated the effect of the disease, and therefore that gene is involved in the progression of the disease (and can perhaps be used as a drug target). Then you can do linkage studies and gene mapping to find out what gene was mutated by looking at the recombination linkage frequency of your mutation with the variety of well known markers within the fly genome. Now you can use the new information on the gene you uncovered to see if there is a human orthologue and look at its mammalian function and derive drugs against it.
This is just a thought example, but it illustrates how Drosophila is perhaps the best organism for cheap high-throughput screening of conserved disease models.
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