Eye Color Mutants and Their Enzymes

Abstract

The eye color mutants of Drosophila occupy a significant place in the history of genetics in general, and biochemical gentics in particular. The first mutant to be described in Drosophila was white eye (w) by T. H. Morgan (Morgan, 1910). This observation marked the beginning of the extensive work of Morgan, his coworker Bridges et al. and their students, which developed the genetic analysis of this small insect to the degree of sophistication it has reached today. The experiments of Beadle et al. during the 1930’s and early 1940’s on the development of eye colors and the interaction of genes responsible for eye color production laid much of the groundwork for our knowledge of the relation between genes and metabolism. These were some of the earliest experiments that linked genes to a sequence of steps in a metabolic pathway. This work has been reviewed extensively (Ephrussi, 1942; Beadle and Tatum, 1941).