Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Answer: Introduction: Research is an exceptional part of biomedical science; without proper and extensive research activities, the progress of health care and biomedical sciences will be restricted. However, in order to continue extensive biomedical researches involving human beings, a considerable model organism is extremely necessary, and one of the most common model organisms that the biomedical science uses abundantly is Drosophila melanogaster. Drosophila or the fruit fly is one of the most successful model organism used in the biological investigations due to its highly comparable genetic makeup. The neurobiological and physiological traits of this organism are considered to be very similar to most of the animal system (Apidianakis and Rahme 2011). On a more elaborative note, there are a few key reasons to why this model organism is the most abundantly used in the biological investigations; first and foremost the organism has a suitably short life cycle which is extremely helpful while conducting ge netic or physiological experiments. The mechanism of culturing and maintenance of cultures are also very easy when considering the model organism of concern. And lastly and most importantly, considering the genetic makeup of the organism, it has low number of chromosomes, a small genome size and presence of polytene chromosome which make research activities like genetic engineering, probing and protein expression studies extremely easy. However, despite all the advantages that the organism has in the medical research field there are some significant disadvantages that are associated with using Drosophila as a model organism (Bells 2010). This assignment will explore these limitations in acute detail and will also attempt to determine the attempts or initiatives taken to overcome the limitations. One if the greatest limitations of using Drosophila as a model organism are the fact that the organism has a considerably small genome size, with just 4 chromosomes sets it is quite difficult to incorporate extensive genetic studies with extensively large human genetic code. Along with that it also needs to be considered that the anatomy of the fruit flies are very dissimilar to that of human beings, hence when experimenting with a particular trait response or disease mechanism, it is very difficult to arrive at a definite verdict. Along with that, when considering the disease prevention or treatment pathway studies, the complete absence of any adaptive immune system in the fruit flies. Along with that, a very significant sector for biomedical research for the purpose of human health care and development is the drug testing and improvement studies (Daborn et al. 2012). However, when considering the Drosophila melanogaster, the model organism is not capable of interpreting or accurate ly predicting the effect of the drugs or therapeutic chemical agents on the human body, along with that due to the biology of the organism itself makes the drug delivery within the body of the organism very difficult which further complicates the process of drug testing. Now considering with using drosophila as the model organism in studies in the Australian context, the costs associated with the process is also a very important and influential factor, as the reproduction and maintenance costs have a deciding influence on the overall budget of the research being carried out. The cost of reproduction for Drosophila is significantly higher than that of other model organisms when used in biomedical research. Along with that it has to be mentioned in this context as well that, unlike other model organisms like C. elegans, it is impossible to freeze and store the drosophila gametes for extended period of time, hence it is absolutely required to keep the fly strains as living stocks (Glavis-Bloom, Muhammed and Mylonakis 2012). Now maintaining living stocks of fly strains require them to be regularly turned over for fresh food, which complicates the culture maintenance and costs associated with the process extremely high. Along with that it also must not es cape notice that for the purpose of controlled genetic cross studies to the female fruit flies need to be virgin, hence an extensive and accurate collection process after hours of culturing is also required which further complicates the culturing and culture maintenance procedure. However, the time consumed while carrying out Drosophila experiments are shorter when compared to other organisms due to the fact that the life cycle of the fly is extremely short and compact; although the culture maintenance and maintaining the virgin flies takes meticulous measures which can potentially increase the time required for conducting research on these flies (Hughes et al. 2012). The ethical implications involving genetically modified organisms or insects into the research also complicate the process further. Lastly when discussing the relevance of using Drosophila as the model organism in human disease development research, the extremely small genome size serves to be a significant challenge. Along with that, Drosophila lacks a functional autoimmune system, hence apart from neurodegenerative disorders; there is very little benefits of using Drosophila as the model organism when considering the heart diseases which can be considered one of the most common human diseases, the relevance of using flies to model human heart diseases dwindles even more. One contributing factor to that may be the vast difference between the cardiovascular systems of flies and humans, the cognitive disorders that restricts the correct manifestation of the diseased state being modelled accurately in the flies. And most importantly the fact that the fruit flies lack neurotransmitters and vital receptor sites that play pivotal roles in human disorder development in heart disease and other relatable disorders (Ponto n et al. 2011). On a concluding note, it can be stated that the Drosophila melanogaster is undoubtedly one of the most easy to use and accessible model organisms for biomedical research. However, it has to be understood that there are a myriad of limitations associated with the use of Drosophila in the research. However, there are a number of genetic modifications done on the organism to improve the culture maintenance and relevance of using the model organism. Technologies such as pre-designed molecular deletions, integrated gene mapping, targeted point mutations and transgenic technologies are improving the relevance of using Drosophila as model organism for research (Sabin, Hanna and Cherry 2010). Hence it can be hoped that with progressive research commencing on improving the relevance of Drosophila being will open up new possibilities for use of the model organism in biomedical research in years to come. References: Apidianakis, Y. and Rahme, L.G., 2011. Drosophila melanogaster as a model for human intestinal infection and pathology.Disease models mechanisms,4(1), pp.21-30. Bells, X., 2010. Beyond Drosophila: RNAi in vivo and functional genomics in insects.Annual review of entomology,55, pp.111-128. Daborn, P.J., Lumb, C., Harrop, T.W., Blasetti, A., Pasricha, S., Morin, S., Mitchell, S.N., Donnelly, M.J., Mller, P. and Batterham, P., 2012. Using Drosophila melanogaster to validate metabolism-based insecticide resistance from insect pests.Insect biochemistry and molecular biology,42(12), pp.918-924. Glavis-Bloom, J., Muhammed, M. and Mylonakis, E., 2012. Of model hosts and man: using Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and Galleria mellonella as model hosts for infectious disease research. InRecent Advances on Model Hosts(pp. 11-17). Springer, New York, NY. Hughes, T.T., Allen, A.L., Bardin, J.E., Christian, M.N., Daimon, K., Dozier, K.D., Hansen, C.L., Holcomb, L.M. and Ahlander, J., 2012. Drosophila as a genetic model for studying pathogenic human viruses.Virology,423(1), pp.1-5. Ponton, F., Chapuis, M.P., Pernice, M., Sword, G.A. and Simpson, S.J., 2011. Evaluation of potential reference genes for reverse transcription-qPCR studies of physiological responses in Drosophila melanogaster.Journal of insect physiology,57(6), pp.840-850. Sabin, L.R., Hanna, S.L. and Cherry, S., 2010. Innate antiviral immunity in Drosophila.Current opinion in immunology,22(1), pp.4-9. Yassin, A., Markow, T.A., Narechania, A., OGrady, P.M. and DeSalle, R., 2010. The genus Drosophila as a model for testing tree-and character-based methods of species identification using DNA barcoding.Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution,57(2), pp.509-517.