Talk:Drosophila melanogaster

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[edit] Genetic similarities to humans

Quote: "Genetically speaking, people and fruit flies are very similar. About 61% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies, and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian analogues." 50-60% shared genes does not, genetically speaking, make humans and fruit flies very similar! Recommend deletion or re-wording.

I agree, I'm looking for a reference to the genetically similar to humans.., can somebody provide one please?

Here is a genome comparison tool you can play around with: Taxonomy Plot. In the page I linked to, you can see a search for human proteins that have similar corresponding proteins in Drosophila and the mouse. BLAST is a standard algorithm for comparing protein sequence similarity. I set the BLAST sequence algorithm cutoff high (3000) so that only the most conserved proteins are shown. Note that while there are 285 mouse proteins with BLAST scores above 3000, there are only 6 for Drosophila. The one gene that I selected in the plot (the circled diamond) codes for a large cell surface protein that seems to function in cell adhesion and/or cell growth regulation (it is called "FAT" because mutant larvae in Drosophila had over-grown tissues and were "fat"). If you go to the bottom of the page and click on "5240" you can see the protein sequence comparison of the Drosophila and human FAT proteins (32% identity). Note all of the sequence positions where the human and Drosophila sequences differ. Go back to the first page and click on "18905". Notice how the mouse and human FAT proteins are very similar (81% identity). Compared to a mouse, Drosophila is much less genetically similar to humans. If you did a similar comparison of human, Drosophila and a bacterium, you would conclude that Drosophila is much more genetically similar to humans than a bacterium.
I think the question is, is it accurate and important to say that fruit flies are genetically similar to humans? I mean, if we were to construct a list of "animals that are genetically similar to humans", where would fruit flies rank? Would it be safe to assume that they're way down on the list, next to every mammal in the world and a good number of other animals? Would it be better to say that the genetic similarities that fruit flies do have with humans makes them suitable (in some ways) for disease studies? FireWorks 21:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
It is important to explain why it has been useful to study flies. In evolutionary terms, about three quarters of a billion years ago, all of the types of genes required to produce a complex multicellular organism started to become available in a common ancestor to flies and humans. Flies and humans are both examples of the many types of complex multicellular organisms that can be produced. Many of the key developmental processes that are used to produce any complex multicellular organism can be understood by study of the genes that control development of flies. The body segmentation control genes provide a good example. In contrast, study of the genes of bacterial cells will tell you very little about how to make a multicellular organism. It is true that study of fly genes has been useful for understanding some human diseases, but the study of mammals such as mice is more useful for the study of many human diseases and some developmental processes. For example, you could learn very little about the basic genetic controls for human sex determination by studying flies, but mice use a very similar system. Rather than just throw out phrases like "closely related" and "distantly related" you have to give some specific examples. --JWSchmidt 22:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm editing the same article on Finnish Wikipedia and I was able to gather some references for the statements, but the figures I got were pretty different: The disease-gene homology between man and fly (according to the Reiter et al article cited here also), is 77% and not 75% as stated in Drosophila melanogaster. The overall similarity of man and fly, which in here is said to be 44% I changed to about 20% in the Finnish version and referenced it (very poorly) using Venter's human sequence paper, which states the number of human-fly orthologous genes they found. Then I just divided the number with the total gene number to get the presentage. The 50% protein homology to mammals I couldn't source. Any suggestions on that (or disagreement on my changed numbers)? I might change the numbers here also at some point and reference them, if there are no objections. I'm only a bit unsure, if these kind of exact numbers or presentages are needed at all. --Albval 10:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vision

I find it strange that so much article space is devoted to Drosophila vision. One could justify writing in-depth accounts of fly olfaction, reproduction, etc., but there is little mention of them. I would guess that the author of the vision passage chose to write so much about that topic because it was his area of expertise, and he felt it was important. I'm not recommending that the passage on vision be deleted, I just want to point out that it is disproportionately large compared to the rest of the article. Deadcorpse 21:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree with the above. In fact, it seems the vision section should be an article in it's own right. What I find glaringly absent is any history of Drosophila as a genetic model system. No mention of Thomas Hunt Morgan who identified the first mutant:
In a pedigree culture of Drosophila which had been running for nearly one year through a considerable number of generations, a male apperared with white eyes. The normal flies have brilliant red eyes. Thomas H. Morgan, 1910
And lets not forget the paper by Morgans students Alfred Sturtevant and Calvin Bridges The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity based on their work with flies. Also worthy of mention is all the pioneering work from Edward Lewis in the genetic mechanisms of development, again using the power of drosophila genetics. This was recognised in 1995 when Ed Lewis, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus were awarded the Nobel Prize. All these events should be mentioned since they had a huge impact on how biologists attack a scientific problem.David D. 20:27, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
I suspect part of the reason the author feels vision is significant may be that Drosophila eyes in particular make a good model for development. Sorry I don't have a citation, but I remember more than once both during undergraduate genetics and during genetics seminars hearing about developmental biologists using eye deformities as a convenient way of visualising developmental defects. I guess because they're so big, and so precisely patterened. Still, the amount of detail there now is likely a bit more than necessary. Adrian J. Hunter 09:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


"Each microvillus is 1 mm to 1.5 mm in length and 50 nm in diameter."

Shouldn't that length be 1 to 1.5 micrometre, instead of millimetre? It conforms to the Microvillus article. Amorim Parga 08:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to get rid of Fruit Flies

Anyone know how to get rid of these buggers when they are hanging around your kitchen? 68.17.148.234 01:39, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  1. Dessert wine. Leave a glass of it on your kitchen counter. They will drink, then drown.
  2. This is a tested technique recommended by a fruit fly research lab. Put a small amount of banana, or other sweet food, into a glass. Make a paper cone and insert it snugly on the top of the glass. The hole of the paper cone needs to be about 1.5 times the size of a fruit fly, slightly bigger than a pencil's point. Make sure your cone is taped to the glass so they can't crawl up the inside of the glass and out. The flies can get themselves downwards through the hole, but they cant figure out how to fly up through the hole. Within a day, you will have them all captured. Vancouverbagel 05:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

"It is distinct from the kinds of fruit flies that are agricultural pests."

I though this was worth putting in the lead. It might be my own bias showing through, but in Australia we're paranoid about fruit flies breaching quarantine: best to make this point early, lest people get the wrong idea about the local genetics lab! Adrian J. Hunter 10:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mating

There are two sections that discuss mating rituals, one in the Life Cycle section and one in its own section, which has been tagged for lack of references. I suggest that the two be merged in the Life Cycle section, or the latter deleted due to lack of verification. --Digitalgadget 05:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tinman gene removal

I believe this example is too specific. (it was removed without explanation and replaced). Perhaps using it as an example rather than the way it is right now where it has no context. I'll do this when I have a chance, unless there are strenuous objections. Flyguy649 05:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sequencing year / Contradict tag

Why does the article state that the Drosophila genome was sequenced in 1998 although the referenced sequence paper came out two years later, in 2000? Is that a mistake or am I just missing something? --Albval 10:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This issue is the reason why I tagged the article with {{contradict}}. --B.d.mills 06:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I just checked on PubMed, and the first publication of the Drosophila genome was in 2000, although it has since of course been improved upon. I'll change the article now. Regards, Flyguy649talkcontribs 16:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Link

Would this article, Maintenance of a Drosophila Laboratory: General Procedures, be useful to add to the external links section? Drosophila is not my area of interest, thought it best to ask. Zzorse 00:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, Wikipedia should be an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide. So although the info in this link is useful to Drosophilists, people do not need to find that at Wikipedia. In fact, most Drosophila labs would probably have that protocol (or more likely, "Laboratory Culture of Drosophila," which it is adapted from; our lab does). Flyguy649talkcontribs 00:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please check time for eggs to hatch at 25 degrees C

In this edit, an anon changed "The eggs, which are about 0.5 millimetres long, hatch after 12–15 h (at 25 °C (77 °F))" to "...hatch after 20-22 h..." without comment. I've assumed this is just experimentation and reverted, but could someone kindly confirm the true duration, ideally using one of the Ashburner sources? Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 12:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussing a split

Nope I don't think a split is a good idea currently. The article stands at 27kb, which would shrink a bit with some copyediting I am sure, and is smaller than most other biological Featured Articles. The vision section pertains to this organism and as WP is not paper, can be reduplicated elsewhere. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] eye colour

Where is the genome that decide wich eye colour the fly will get?  The great Darren shan fan  12:41, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Eye colour in flies is somewhat complex. The colour is determined by the levels of red and brown pigments in the pigment granules within the eye. Both pigments require the product of the white gene (on the X chromosome) to get into the pigment granules. The red pigments also require the product of the brown gene (on chromosome 2), while the brown pigments require the product of the scarlet gene (on chromosome 3). Many other genes (found on all chromosomes) affect the production or transport of these pigments. There is a good explanation of this at this blog link. -- Flyguy649 talk 13:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fruit Flies Experiment

What is the best way to capture fruit flies without hurting them, so that I can study there life cycle in an experiment?--HomeschooledGenius (talk) 13:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Fruit flies (at least many Drosophila species) eat the yeast growing on rotting fruit. You can put some ripe banana in a cup or bowl covered in plastic wrap with small holes poked into it. The flies will smell the fruit and get in, but they aren't so good at getting out. After you get a few in there, the females will lay eggs. You can probably get rid of your captives and transfer the banana to some other convenient container with some fresh banana. In 10-14 days or so, you'll have a new generation of flies. -- Flyguy649 talk 13:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks... that'll help a lot. --HomeschooledGenius (talk) 18:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)