Drosophila melanogaster is a popular organism for laboratory exercises in genetics. However, a significant barrier to using Drosophila in teaching or research is the collection of virgins for controlled crosses. Procuring adequate numbers of virgins takes a great deal of time, even for skilled collectors. Carolina’s Easy Fly™ system makes this task EASY for both beginners and those who have used Drosophila for years. By supplying large numbers of virgin females, the system allows instructors or students to set up crosses with ease and eliminates errors common with manual virgin collection.

How does it work?

The Easy Fly™ system works through the selective killing of male larvae with a 2-hour heat shock treatment, leaving only virgin females alive. Easy Fly™ males contain a modified Y* chromosome with a gene that activates programmed cell death when the larvae are exposed to high temperature. Since only males have a Y* chromosome with this gene, female larvae are unaffected. Carolina performs the heat shock treatment in our laboratories, so all shipped cultures contain pupae or adult flies that will develop into virgin females only.

Use Drosophila strains with the Easy Fly™ mutation as you would traditional strains. Virgin females collected through this system are genetically identical to virgins collected from normal stocks. Easy Fly™ virgins may be readily mated to males bearing a normal Y chromosome.

Using Drosophila just got EASIER!

Easy Fly™ Drosophila are available as individual cultures or in inquiry-based kits.

• Individual cultures: Use our Easy Fly™ Drosophila cultures to replace strains you normally use for manual virgin collection.
• 172632 wild type (Oregon-R with hsY)
• 172633 white
• 172634 sepia
• 172635 white black purple cinnabar
• 172636 white crossveinless
• 172637 black sepia
• Inquiry-based kits: Help your students learn about and perform monohybrid and sex-linked crosses without having to collect virgins. Using the Carolina™ Easy Fly™ Monohybrid Cross Kit, students study monohybrid inheritance using red-eyed (wild type) males and Easy Fly™ sepia females. The Carolina™ Easy Fly™ Sex-Linked Inheritance Kit allows students to explore sex-linked inheritance through crossing red-eyed (wild type) males with Easy Fly™ white-eyed females.

Individual cultures and those in the kits contain either pupae or adults. Note: Please order these items at least 2 weeks in advance of the desired ship date.