Oliveira Marcos T, Anhezini Lucas, Araujo Helena M, Oliveira Marcus F, Couto-Lima Carlos A
Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias de Jaboticabal, Departamento de Biotecnologia, Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil.
Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Departamento de Histologia e Embriologia, Maceió, AL, Brazil.
Genet Mol Biol. 2024 Feb 19;47(1):e20230202. doi: 10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2023-0202. eCollection 2024.
Drosophila melanogaster is undoubtedly one of the most useful model organisms in biology. Initially used in solidifying the principles of heredity, and establishing the basic concepts of population genetics and of the synthetic theory of evolution, it can currently offer scientists much more: the possibility of investigating a plethora of cellular and biological mechanisms, from development and function of the immune system to animal neurogenesis, tumorigenesis and beyond. Extensive resources are available for the community of Drosophila researchers worldwide, including an ever-growing number of mutant, transgenic and genomically-edited lines currently carried by stock centers in North America, Europe and Asia. Here, we provide evidence for the importance of stock centers in sustaining the substantial increase in the output of Drosophila research worldwide in recent decades. We also discuss the challenges that Brazilian Drosophila scientists face to keep their research projects internationally competitive, and argue that difficulties in importing fly lines from international stock centers have significantly stalled the progression of all Drosophila research areas in the country. Establishing a local stock center might be the first step towards building a strong local Drosophila community that will likely contribute to all areas of life sciences research.
黑腹果蝇无疑是生物学中最有用的模式生物之一。它最初被用于巩固遗传原理，建立群体遗传学和综合进化理论的基本概念，而目前它能为科学家提供更多：研究大量细胞和生物学机制的可能性，从免疫系统的发育和功能到动物神经发生、肿瘤发生等等。全球果蝇研究群体可利用广泛的资源，包括北美、欧洲和亚洲的保种中心目前所保存的数量不断增加的突变体、转基因和基因组编辑品系。在此，我们提供证据证明保种中心对于维持近几十年来全球果蝇研究产出大幅增长的重要性。我们还讨论了巴西果蝇科学家在保持其研究项目具有国际竞争力方面所面临的挑战，并认为从国际保种中心进口果蝇品系的困难严重阻碍了该国所有果蝇研究领域的进展。建立一个本地保种中心可能是构建一个强大的本地果蝇研究群体的第一步，而这个群体可能会对生命科学研究的所有领域做出贡献。
