Continuing the discussion from S1E70 CUBE Chatshaala: Exploring New ways of Learning:
Yesterday CUBE Chatshaala webinar Discussed about Why Drosophila melanogaster is important studymaterial?!
6 Nobel Prizes for Drosophila melanogaster.
chromosomal theory of inheritance further leading to the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1933. His work with Drosophila played an important role in fundamental discoveries of inheritance.
In 1927, Muller one of the Morgans’ students studied the hereditary characteristics of fruit flies and demonstrated that mutations and hereditary changes can be caused by X‑ray (Muller 1927). He also observed that higher the X‑ray
exposer higher was the frequency of mutation. This study became the first evidence of harmful effect of X‑ray.
Later in 1946, Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the same.
In the late 1970s and 1980s geneticist, embryologists and molecular biologists started working together, and Drosophila
research became a great hit.
Edward B Lewis along with Christiane Nusslein Volhard and Eric F Wieschaus was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1995. The study conducted by these three scientists was on early embryo development. Christiane Nusslein Volhard and Eric F Wieschaus were able to identify genes that were playing an important role in the formation of body segments and body plans in Drosophila. Edward B Lewis studied how the genes were controlling the development of specialized organs from these body segments. This discovery has helped in understanding the congenital malformation in human.This tiny little fly has not only revolutionized the field of genetics but also was a star in the field of immunology. When the scientists were searching an answer to the question that how human and other organisms protect themselves from the attack of bacteria and other organisms.
Bruce Beutler ,Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman got an answer to it while working on Drosophila.Jules Hoffmann found that flies with mutations in Toll gene died when infected with bacteria and fungi due to lack of innate defense system, thus throwing light on receptor proteins which can recognize microorganisms and activate innate immunity. Beutler discovered that Toll‑like receptors were also present in mice, which shows that mammals and fruit flies have similar kind of molecules to activate innate immunity. Ralph Steinman discovered dendritic cells and their ability to activate T cells. Thus the signal generated by Toll‑like receptors is sensed by dendritic cells, which further activates T cells, therefore, it avoids the destruction of body’s own molecule. This work was then awarded the Nobel Prize in 2011 for physiology or medicine.
Finally, again this small little creature has played a beautiful role in receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. All living organisms have an internal biological clock, which helps us to keep a day and night rhythm, but the mechanism of its work was not known till date. Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were working on fruit fly and are able to explain how the circadian rhythm is working and synchronizing with the Earth’s revolutions.