Drosophila Genetic Resource and Stock Center; The National BioResource Project

Abstract

Abstract:The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is not categorized as a laboratory animal, but it is recognised as one of the most important model organisms for basic biology, life science, and biomedical research. This tiny fly continues to occupy a core place in genetics and genomic approaches to studies of biology and medicine. The basic principles of genetics, including the variations of phenotypes, mutations, genetic linkage, meiotic chromosome segregation, chromosome aberrations, recombination, and precise mapping of genes by genetic as well as cytological means, were all derived from studies of Drosophila. Recombinant DNA technology was developed in the 1970s and Drosophila DNA was the first among multicellular organisms to be cloned. It provided a detailed characterization of genes in combination of classical cytogenetic data. Drosophila thus became the pioneering model organism for various fields of life science research into multicellular organisms. Here, I briefly describe the history of Drosophila research and provide a few examples of the application of the abundant genetic resources of Drosophila to basic biology and medical investigations. A Japanese national project, the National BioResource Project (NBRP) for collection, maintainance, and provision of Drosophila resources, that is well known and admired by researchers in other countries as an important project, is also briefly described.

FlyPrimerBank: An Online Database for Drosophila melanogaster Gene Expression Analysis and Knockdown Evaluation of RNAi Reagents

“…The average predicted PCR product is between 50 and 250 bps, and the average theoretical melting temperature for any primer pair is approximately 60°. After primer design, we systematically evaluated the overlap of each primer with publicly available dsRNA reagents, which include the genome-wide dsRNA amplicon library for cell-based studies from the DRSC, as well as long dsRNA hairpins in transgenic fly stocks from NIG (NIG-FLY), VDRC, and Transgenic RNAi Project of Harvard Medical School (TRiP) (Dietzl et al 2007; Flockhart et al 2011; Mohr et al 2010; Ni et al 2009, 2011; Yamamoto 2010). Annotation of the overlap with RNAi reagents will help scientists choose primer pairs that avoid the reagent itself, making them suitable for confirmation of RNAi-based knockdown (Table 1).…”

“…For Drosophila in vivo studies, RNAi reagents are generally either long dsRNA hairpins (usually between 200 and 500 bps) with gene fragments cloned by PCR as inverted repeats, or short hairpins (shRNAs) of 19−21 bps generated from oligonucleotides (Clemens et al 2000; Hammond et al 2000). Genome-scale RNAi reagents targeting Drosophila genes have been made available by several independent groups (Dietzl et al 2007; Flockhart et al 2011; Horn et al 2010; Ni et al 2009, 2011; Perrimon et al 2010; Yamamoto 2010). Studies using RNAi reagents in cultured cells, as well as in vivo in Drosophila , have made contributions to a number of areas of study, and qPCR analysis is a common method used to assess the level of target gene knockdown.…”

Resources for Functional Genomics Studies in Drosophila melanogaster

“…), Drosophila Genetic Resource Center-Kyoto Stock Center [Kyoto PiggyBac, FlyTrap, and Cambridge protein trap insertion (CPTI) fluorescent trap stocks, Gal4 stocks, etc.] (Yamamoto 2010) and National Institute of Genetics-Japan (NIG-Japan; Cas9 fly stocks, RNAi fly stocks, etc.) (for URLs see Table 1).…”

Worms, flies and four-legged friends: the applicability of biological models to the understanding of intestinal inflammatory diseases

“…Rather, it is by harnessing the power of fly genetics that components of disease-relevant signaling pathways and cellular processes in the intestine – an organ that the fly shares in part with the human – can be determined. Only through further analysis in mammalian models can the role of such molecules in IBD and NEC be determined (Yamamoto, 2010). …”