Drosophila melanogaster (Greek for dark-bellied dew lover : δρόσος = dew, φίλος = intimate friend, lover, μέλας = dark-coloured, γαστήρ = belly[2]) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order of the flies. The species is commonly known as the common fruit fly or vinegar fly, and is one of the most commonly used model organisms in biology, including studies in genetics, physiology and life history evolution. Flies belonging to the family Tephritidae are also called fruit flies, which can lead to confusion, especially in Australia where the term fruit fly refers to the Tephritidae, an economic pest in fruit production.
Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most studied organisms in biological research, particularly in genetics and developmental biology. There are several reasons:
The care and culture requires little equipment and use little space even when using large cultures, and the overall cost is low.
- It is small and easy to grow in the laboratory and their morphology is easy to identify once they are anesthetized (usually with ether, carbon dioxide gas, by cooling them, or with products like FlyNap)
- It has a short generation time (about 10 days at room temperature) so several generations can be studied within a few weeks.
- It has a high fecundity (females lay up to 100 eggs per day, and perhaps 2000 in a lifetime).[12]
- Males and females are readily distinguished and virgin females are easily isolated, facilitating genetic crossing.
- The mature larvae show giant chromosomes in the salivary glands called polytene chromosomes—"puffs" indicate regions of transcription and hence gene activity.
- It has only four pairs of chromosomes: three autosomes, and one sex chromosome.
- Males do not show meiotic recombination, facilitating genetic studies.
- Recessive lethal "balancer chromosomes" carrying visible genetic markers can be used to keep stocks of lethal alleles in a heterozygous state without recombination due to multiple inversions in the balancer.
- Genetic transformation techniques have been available since 1987.
- Its complete genome was sequenced and first published in 2000.[13]