Enzyme variation, metabolic flux and fitness: alcohol dehydrogenase in Drosophila melanogaster.

Although there are many in vitro studies of enzyme activity of genetic variants at the Adh locus in D. melanogaster, little is known about the corresponding metabolic activity in living flies. We report here such measurements of the metabolic flux in the conversion of ethanol to the two products, CO2 and lipids, for six different active genotypes, containing the predominant naturally recurring alleles and covering a threefold range of in vitro activity. In adult flies we have found nonsignificant differences between genotypes in metabolic flux when estimates for individual genotypes had standard errors of approximately 10% of the mean value. In vitro activities are, therefore, poor predictors of the physiological consequences of enzyme variation since such determinations ignore the interactions inherent in multienzyme systems. We have no evidence that heterozygote show overdominance either at the enzyme or the flux level. Since fitness differences between genotypes must be generated by physiological differences, investigations of polymorphisms should be based on in vivo studies.