Drosophila melanogaster: Inheritance Pattern Experiment
Kaitlyn Grifka
Saginaw Valley State University Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to study a population of Drosophila melanogaster, or more commonly known as the fruit fly. Our main goal was to determine if our flies displayed an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern or an X-linked recessive pattern based on the two different mutations that were existing in the population. Those mutations include having vestigial wings, sepia eyes, or both. We started out with the parental generation being of the wild type, normal eyes, normal body and normal wings. When they crossed, we received an F1 generation of all wild type. This is because the females were virgins so they …show more content…
For one, they are easy to breed, you get many offspring that results in a lot of data and also genetic crosses are possible. The flies are temperature dependent (23 degrees Centigrade), which means the temperature that the offspring are born into determine their sex. When determining the sex of the flies, you look for certain characteristics. To determine males, they are generally smaller than females, have a round backside and they have sex combs on their front appendages that looks like a dark spot. To determine females, you look for a larger body, pointed backside, and they do not have sex combs on their appendages. To determine whether a fly has a mutation or not is quite simple. A wild type fly will have a golden brown body, regular wings and red eyes. The sepia mutation will show golden brown body, normal wings but brown eyes instead of red. Having a golden brown body, red eyes but crumpled up wings will prove the vestigial mutation. Finally, having a normal body, normal eyes but no wings at all is considered the apterous …show more content…
Our parental generation was all wild type and true breeding; they had the normal body, normal wings and normal eyes. When those two phenotypes crossed, our F1 phenotypes showed both wild type females and males. There were no mutations expected due to the females being virgins for the first cross of the parental generation. Once we crossed the F1 generation, we discovered the traits were unlinked. As a result, our F2 generation produced wild type flies, the vestigial mutation, the sepia mutation, and the apterous mutation. There was something out of the ordinary though, we observed a mix of vestigial and sepia mutation which is entirely possible but was not expected. We did not include those flies in our
Kaitlyn Grifka
Saginaw Valley State University Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to study a population of Drosophila melanogaster, or more commonly known as the fruit fly. Our main goal was to determine if our flies displayed an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern or an X-linked recessive pattern based on the two different mutations that were existing in the population. Those mutations include having vestigial wings, sepia eyes, or both. We started out with the parental generation being of the wild type, normal eyes, normal body and normal wings. When they crossed, we received an F1 generation of all wild type. This is because the females were virgins so they …show more content…
For one, they are easy to breed, you get many offspring that results in a lot of data and also genetic crosses are possible. The flies are temperature dependent (23 degrees Centigrade), which means the temperature that the offspring are born into determine their sex. When determining the sex of the flies, you look for certain characteristics. To determine males, they are generally smaller than females, have a round backside and they have sex combs on their front appendages that looks like a dark spot. To determine females, you look for a larger body, pointed backside, and they do not have sex combs on their appendages. To determine whether a fly has a mutation or not is quite simple. A wild type fly will have a golden brown body, regular wings and red eyes. The sepia mutation will show golden brown body, normal wings but brown eyes instead of red. Having a golden brown body, red eyes but crumpled up wings will prove the vestigial mutation. Finally, having a normal body, normal eyes but no wings at all is considered the apterous …show more content…
Our parental generation was all wild type and true breeding; they had the normal body, normal wings and normal eyes. When those two phenotypes crossed, our F1 phenotypes showed both wild type females and males. There were no mutations expected due to the females being virgins for the first cross of the parental generation. Once we crossed the F1 generation, we discovered the traits were unlinked. As a result, our F2 generation produced wild type flies, the vestigial mutation, the sepia mutation, and the apterous mutation. There was something out of the ordinary though, we observed a mix of vestigial and sepia mutation which is entirely possible but was not expected. We did not include those flies in our