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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1979 May;76(5):2381–2384. doi: 10.1073/pnas.76.5.2381

Reevaluation of level of genic heterozygosity in natural population of Drosophila melanogaster by two-dimensional electrophoresis.

A J Brown, C H Langley
PMCID: PMC383605  PMID: 109840

Abstract

We have found the two-dimensional electrophoretic technique of O'Farrell to be highly efficient in the detection of charge-change substitutions in a large number of proteins. We have applied this method to determine the level of heterozygosity of the most abundant proteins in Drosophila melanogaster adults from a natural population. The estimate of per-locus heterozygosity obtained from approximately 54 loci screened was 4% with 6 loci polymorphic. This is much lower than overall estimates obtained by standard gel electrophoresis but is not different from estimates for "Group I" enzymes--i.e., those utilizing a narrow spectrum of substrates of intracellular origin. We consider these data to throw open the question of the level of genetic variability in nature.

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Selected References

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