Drosophila simulans

Drosophila simulans

Drosophila simulans is a Drosophila species of the family of fruit flies. It is closely related to Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, which is used as a model organism in genetics, development and cell biology. The species was described in 1919 by Alfred Sturtevant for the first time and used in the early 1920s for comparative genetic studies. Drosophila simulans and D. melanogaster are similar in appearance very much, the only " conspicuous" difference is the male genitalia. The two species have evolved 2-3 million years ago apart until then they had a common ancestor.

Drosophila simulans has several properties that allow the type for a genetic comparison with Drosophila melanogaster appear to be suitable:

• She has a similar generation time, and can be grown under the same conditions.
• There is only one major chromosomal abnormality in chromosome 3, an inversion.
• The genomes are therefore easily comparable with each other (see Alignment)
• In particular, polymorphisms can be identified in this manner.

Drosophila simulans is sequenced by the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University Medical School. The genome is compared with that of Drosophila melanogaster and may provide clues to evolutionary divergence, which can be used as evidence or counter-evidence for hypotheses of the theory of evolution ( such as mutation rate, selection, and genetic drift ). So far, it is already possible to judge that the two types are used sufficiently close, but are significantly different in order to be used for this purpose can.