ABSTRACT
The contribution of insect systems to developmental biology and genetics is best exemplified by the vast amount of information that has been accumulated using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. V. Stollar and S. J. Mento were the first to apply systematically the techniques and approaches of somatic cell genetics to mosquito cells in culture. Cloned genes can be used as probes to investigate physiological processes in the intact organism. The development of techniques for transforming Drosophila cells in culture, and for transforming Drosophila embryos using vectors based on the transposable P element, has provided powerful new approaches to carrying out fundamental molecular investigations using this insect. The two-dimensional gel system has also been used to compare the ribosomal proteins from cycloheximide-resistant and sensitive mosquito cells. An approach to identifying ribosomal protein genes has been to clone into a plasmid vector, double-stranded complementary DNA copies of size-selected messenger RNA from Aedes albopictus cells.
