| Background |
Large community of highly cooperative investigators and communal genome efforts easily accessible via FlyBase website (Drysdale
and FlyBase Consortium 2008)
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Twelve sequenced drosophilid genomes |
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Ready availability of mutant lines |
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History of the application of imaging techniques to fixed and live material |
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Online protocols available (see “Web Resources”) |
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| Size and diversity of tissue types |
Small; easy to culture in useful quantities in the laboratory |
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Prolific breeders with short life cycle (~10 d at 25°C) |
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Diversity of most complex tissue types found in mammals, but more accessible to manipulation |
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Good for imaging: small enough for whole organisms to be examined under microscope; large enough to isolate individual tissues
(e.g., embryos, ~150 × 150 × 400 μm)
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Giant salivary glands with polytene chromosomes (easily identified bands); simple karyotype (four chromosomes) |
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| Genetically tractable |
Many simple genetic screens developed over many years have allowed identification of new mutations, and they continue to do
so.
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Fluorescent trap screens |
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Many genetic tricks, such as P-element transformation, germline clones, somatic clones; many tissue-specific expression lines; very easy to perform RNA
interference (RNAi) on tissue-culture cells (Venken and Bellen 2007)
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A variety of existing fluorescent-protein-expressing lines available on request from individual research groups or stock centers |
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Commercial production of transformed fly lines |
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| Disadvantages |
Cannot store lines frozen very easily |
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Transgenic line development takes a few months. |
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Homologous recombination still difficult |
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Do not “self” as with hermaphrodite nematodes |
