at the Latest, when looking at the fruit platter, even the griesgrämigste Berlin will be able to coax the Winter, something Positive: at last, this fruit is no longer floating fly through the kitchen, which seem to be summer, within a matter of days to vertausend times. However, at the latest, next summer they are back, the people are so loyal following as a nuisance.
researchers disturb the tiny, three Millimeter-sized insects, however, by no means. Drosophila melanogaster – the Tau is in love with the black belly – as probably the best-studied organisms of the earth. At least eight Nobel prizes have been awarded for knowledge gained with the help of the red-eyed, Two-winged aircraft, from the discovery of chromosomes as carriers of genetic information, the mechanisms of early embryonic development to the Mechanics of the internal clock of cells. Long before the human genome was analyzed, were flying researchers a long time ago the genome sequence “of” Flying in the hands.
In hundreds of laboratories, researchers around the world hold tens of thousands of Drosophila strains in small jam jars with cotton wool or foam plug, in order to understand how complex organisms work, or what’s going on in diseases wrong. However, how does this Supermodel of biology originally, and since when is it the fruit to share with the people, was yet unknown. Now Suzan Mansourian and Marcus Stensmyr from the University of Lund in Sweden, in the journal “Current Biology reports” of the solution to the puzzle.
for Years, staring at
The First, of what was there around the fruit fly, described in 1830 as a separate species, was features a German entomologist Johann Wilhelm. Famous and most important model organism in biology, the bow tie but it was Thomas Hunt Morgan. In about 1907 the zoologist had begun to breed the flies in his laboratory at Columbia University in New York.
The otherwise annoying feature to multiply rapidly, the researchers are just at the right time. He waited for a Mutation, a spontaneous change of the Fly, the inherited. Three years of staring, Morgan so day for day, thousands of tiny red-eyed fruit flies. In the Winter of 1910, he wanted to fly, give up already, since he looked one Morning into the completely white eyes of a male Fly: The first documented Mutation (“white”) of a fruit.
the fruit of The Marula tree is about yellow as big as a Mirabelle plum tree (three inches in diameter) and gold, can be eaten raw…photo: mauritius images
Since then, researchers for each of the 19 806 fly genes have led to dozens of mutations found or induced. Because only in this way the function of the genes learn. As Morgan from “white” and other mutations return concluded that genes are located sequentially on chromosomes, felt, decades later, the tübingen biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard about mutation experiments, the genes on the development of control early embryos. In both cases, it turned out that the basic biological principles apply to people. About 75 percent of the genes that are involved in human diseases have a counterpart in the Fly.
Interchangeable genes between the human and the Fly
Sometimes the genes are even interchangeable, although the last common ancestor of Fly and man should have lived about 500 million years ago. So, for example, the Gene “Pax6”, the trigger is in a defective condition in humans and other the development of the eyes of mammals, disturbs, in the Fly the gene mutation “eyeless” to compensate for the atrophied also (complex)eyes. Apparently, eyeless and Pax6 have, even after 500 million years of Evolution, both in Flying as well as man, still the same function: eye development – even if the eyes are completely different.
All this and much more Details researchers know about Drosophila melanogaster – but where the Supermodel is actually, remained a mystery. Although there is a Fly almost everywhere in nature – wherever there is honey, ripe fruits, and a comfortable temperature of 25 degrees Celsius is wrong. However, all of these populations are at some point moved to, as a culture, follower of the people. “The fly in the fruits of our kitchens, the direct ancestors of a group of flies that live on Marula fruits in a distant forest are shells,” says Marcus Stensmyr. “Before about 10 000 years ago, these flies have moved in with their human neighbors and have settled with them, the world.”
giraffe shit is ok, Löwenkot avoid the Fly
The fly on the track, the researchers came, Suzan Mansourian in the course of their doctoral work, the scent sensors in the antennas on the head of the Fly looked at the animals track, about food and mating partners. For this, she also took field trials in Africa found, for example, that the fly Löwenkot avoid while they the lay their eggs safely on the legacies of giraffes. Reason for this is Phenol, which is produced by bacteria, which are found in Löwenkot, and those of the fly offspring not exposed.
As Mansourian your fly traps in Zimbabwe happen to be in the vicinity of Marula trees, she began, in a very short time, so many Drosophila. They preferred the ripe fruits of Sclerocarya birrea, also elephant tree called, even all other fruit, even the fly from other Parts of the world were able to enjoy for countless generations, never Marula fruit. Apparently, the sensory organs of the animals are still on the Marula fragrance.
fly on Marula
Not only to fly at Marula, also the people in the Region. The people of the San is using the fruit for thousands of years. Out of the Fund of at least 24 million of the walnut-large Marula kernels suggests in a cave in the Region. “The San seem to have invested a lot of time to collect Marula and process, as a basic food for many months of the year,” the researchers write. This is probably the origin of the contact between Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens.
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biomedical mice, people, and models
Adelheid Müller-Lissner
The warehouse full of Marula fruits in the caves attracted the flies. The caves offered enough food, but also protection from predators and inclement weather. And with a little bit of getting used to the darkness of closed space, and a tolerance to the alcohol in fermenting fruit, matching the Fly to the people. A step, without which science would be a Supermodel less and much less knew.
