Introduction

FlyLab will allow you to play the role of a research geneticist. You will use FlyLab to study important introductory principles of genetics by developing hypotheses and designing and conducting matings between fruit flies with different mutations that you have selected. Once you have examined the results of a simulated cross, you can perform a statistical test of your data by chi-square analysis and apply these statistics to accept or reject your hypothesis for the predicted phenotypic ratio of offspring for each cross. With FlyLab, it is possible to study multiple generations of offspring, and perform testcrosses and backcrosses. FlyLab is a very versatile program; it can be used to learn elementary genetic principles such as dominance, recessiveness, and Mendelian ratios, or more complex concepts such as sex-linkage, epistasis, recombination, and genetic mapping.

Objectives

The purpose of this laboratory is to:

• Simulate basic principles of genetic inheritance based on Mendelian genetics by designing and performing crosses between fruit flies.

• Help you understand the relationship between an organism's genotype and its phenotype.

• Demonstrate the importance of statistical analysis to accept or reject a hypothesis.

• Use genetic crosses and recombination data to identify the location of genes on a chromosome by genetic mapping.

Before You Begin: Prerequisites

Before beginning FlyLab you should be familiar with the following concepts:

• Chromosome structure, and the stages of gamete formation by meiosis.
• The basic terminology and principles of Mendelian genetics, including complete and incomplete dominance, epistasis, lethal mutations, recombination, autosomal recessive inheritance, autosomal dominant inheritance, and sex-linked inheritance.
• Predicting the results of monohybrid and dihybrid crosses by constructing a Punnett square.
• How genetic mutations produce changes in phenotype, and beneficial and detrimental results of mutations in a population.