Creating a Drosophila SOD1 Mutant Through Homologous Recombination

This works describes the creation and partial phenotypic analysis of a point mutation within the endogenous Drosophila sod gene. The sodS111C allele was generated through a process of mutagenesis and homologous recombination in vivo. SodS111C stocks were created to analyze the mutation’s influence on protein aggregation, if any. We were able to test the effects of this mutant by assessing the function of the protein using genetic assays. To examine the effect of sodS111C on the second chromosome in the presence of sodG85R on the third chromosome appropriate genetic crosses were performed and it was determined that there was no significant difference among the eclosion rates of progenies. All four genotypes of progenies eclosed in Mendelian ratios. This could be explained by the fact that though one class of progeny genotype contained a double mutant sod, there was still the presence of the endogenous sodwt that could have masked for the double mutant