Proposal- how alcohol and drugs affect drosophila mutation - Essay Example

In this research, the researcher will show how tolerance effects last in Drosophila, an incidence that can be related to human beings. Sometimes alcohol and drug use may extend to the withdrawal stage and the researcher will show whether stress affects the return to a tolerant state after this no drug usage stage of withdrawal. Lastly, the research will show the different behaviors of Drosophila mutants that lack donamine receptors to determine whether they behave differently or not. Alcohol use can lead to addiction that is simply the compulsory use of drugs for survival.

Human beings and animals are all subject to drug abuse with recent studies using animals in their studies to explain both behaviors witnessed by humans. The two are proved of having the same body genes that behave the same under alcohol or drug use. In studying the effect of alcohol and drug use in Drosophila mutation, the research will examine the fruit fly Drosophila. Drosophila gets in touch to alcohol and ethanol almost daily from the fermented fruits they eat, but they are resistant to them, unlike ethanol and alcohol in labs that they show some level of sensitivity when exposed to them.

When exposed to alcohol, the fruit flies become hyperactive and show somebody imbalance. Just like humans, fruit flies have genes like alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and acetylaidelyde dehydrogenase (ACDH). Then when exposed to alcohol fumes, ADH changes alcohol into an aldehyde that is then changed to citric acid by ACDH. The citric acid generates the energy responsible for the hyperactivity realized when humans and the fruit flies are exposed to alcohol. The first alcohol exposure results in the hyperactivity but with continuous exposures, the behavior changes and the fruit flies become tolerant to the ethanol and alcohol effects (Speicher, Motulsky and Antonarakis, 2010).

At the tolerance stage, flies have to take more alcohol than earlier for them to start feeling the effects.