Table of Contents
- 1 What are the disadvantages of using a model organism?
- 2 What are the advantages of using a Drosophila model over a mouse one?
- 3 Why is Drosophila a model organism?
- 4 Why can you use Drosophila proteins to study human disease?
- 5 Why is Drosophila called Cinderella of genetics?
- 6 Why can you use Drosophila proteins to study human diseases?
What are the disadvantages of using a model organism?
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|
| Easy and cheap to maintain in large quantities, time and cost effective handling | No easy measure of complex behavior |
| Genetic manipulation is fast and inexpensive (3 month, < $ 500 per transgene) | Only basic measures of cognitive decline |
Can Drosophila be used to model human diseases?
melanogaster models of human diseases provide several unique features such as powerful genetics, highly conserved disease pathways, and very low comparative costs. The fly can effectively be used for low- to high-throughput drug screens as well as in target discovery.
What are the advantages of using a Drosophila model over a mouse one?
There are many technical advantages of using Drosophila over vertebrate models; they are easy and inexpensive to culture in laboratory conditions, have a much shorter life cycle, they produce large numbers of externally laid embryos and they can be genetically modified in numerous ways.
What are some advantages of using Drosophila to study genetics?
Advantages of using Drosophila are as follows:
- Small and easy to maintain.
- Can be raised and tested within small laboratory which does not have access time, space or funding.
- Contains fewer genes than humans, indicating less overall genetic redundancy.
- Developmental time ranges from one to three weeks.
Why is Drosophila a model organism?
Due to their small size and minimal requirements, many Drosophila can be raised and tested within a small laboratory which does not have access time, space or funding. Genetic factors also make this fly an ideal model organism. D. melanogaster only has four pairs of chromosomes compared to 23 pairs in humans.
What are the advantages to using a model to study human disease rather than an actual human?
Studying model organisms can be informative, but care must be taken when generalizing from one organism to another. In researching human disease, model organisms allow for better understanding the disease process without the added risk of harming an actual human.
Why can you use Drosophila proteins to study human disease?
The striking observation that around 75\% of the genes responsible for human diseases are evolutionarily conserved across animal species, including Drosophila, has meant that the study of this organism has facilitated the understanding of multiple aspects of an increasing number of human diseases.
Can the Drosophila findings be easily translated into human research?
In Drosophila, the reduced genome complexity allows easier interpretation of loss-of-function studies. Taken together, these advantages exemplify the reasons for which Drosophila has made paramount contributions to biological research in general and to neuroscience research in particular.
Why is Drosophila called Cinderella of genetics?
The Drosophila is the Cinderella of genetics because of the following reasons: Explanation: Drosophila is a fruit fly and it is used as a model organism for studying diversity of biological subjects like genetics, behavior, population and evolution.
What is the characteristics of Drosophila melanogaster?
It has a rounded head with large, red, compound eyes; three smaller simple eyes, and short antennae. Its mouth has developed for sopping up liquids (Patterson and Stone 1952). The female is slightly larger than the male (Patterson, et al 1943).
Why can you use Drosophila proteins to study human diseases?
How are Drosophila similar to humans?
Drosophila genome is 60\% homologous to that of humans, less redundant, and about 75\% of the genes responsible for human diseases have homologs in flies (Ugur et al., 2016).