| Size and diversity of tissue types |
| • Small and easy to culture in useful quantities in the lab. |
| • Prolific breeders, short life cycle (~10 days; 25°C). |
| • Contains the majority of complex tissue types found in mammals, but more accessible to manipulation. |
| • Good for imaging; small enough to examine whole organism under microscope and large enough to isolate individual tissues
(e.g., embryos ~150 × 150 × 400 μm).
|
| • Giant salivary glands with polytene chromosomes (easily identified bands) simple karyotype (four chromosomes). |
|
| Genetically tractable |
| • Many simple genetic screens over many years have identified, and continue to identify, new mutations. |
| • Sequenced genome (D. melanogaster and D. pseudoobscura).
|
| • Many genetic tricks, such as P-element transformation, germ line clones, somatic clones, many tissue-specific expression
lines, very easy RNAi on tissue culture cells.
|
| • Various existing GFP-expressing lines available upon request from individual research groups or stock centers. |
|
| Background |
| • Large community of highly cooperative investigators and communal genome efforts easily accessible via Flybase Web site. |
| • Ready availability of mutant lines. |
| • History of the application of imaging techniques to fixed and live material. |
|
| Drawbacks |
| • Cannot store lines frozen very easily. |
| • Transgenic line development takes a few months. |
| • Homologous recombination still difficult. |
| • Does not “self” as with hermaphrodite nematodes. |
