Studies on isozyme variations in a few members of Drosophila nasuta subgroup

Abstract

Isozyme variation at six enzyme loci has been studied involving nine members of Drosophila nasuta subgroup, by employing polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic technique. Alleles at three loci namely Acph, Aph and α-Est are found to be highly polymorphic; whereas at β-Est locus the alleles are less variable while at α-Gpdh and To loci, the alleles are found to be least variable. Null alleles are encountered in low frequencies at α-Est, β-Est and c-Gpdh enzyme loci. The allelic frequencies obtained at the six enzyme loci have been utilised as a yardstick to measure the extent of genetic relationship between the species studied. The genetic identity and genetic distance between these closely-related species have been estimated by adopting the Nei's formula. These findings have been discussed with reference to earlier cytogenetic and hybridisation studies made on this subgroup.