Question

Thomas Hunt Morgan got a Nobel prize for his work on which organism?

• A. Fruit fly
• B. C. elegans
• C. Pea plant
• D. Zebrafish

Answer 1

The correct option is A Fruit fly

Thomas Hunt Morgan chose fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). Fruit flies are perfect for performing experiments because they are easy to grow in the laboratory, have a very short life span (2 weeks), clear phenotypic differentiation of male and female can be observed (male -smaller, female - bigger), and many more easily distinguishable characters made him choose fruit fly for his experiments. He proved and defined linkage on the basis of breeding experiments on the fruit fly. His work on the role of chromosomes in heredity was recognised in 1933 with the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. He and his colleagues experimentally verified the chromosomal theory of inheritance which helped in explaining the causes of variation in sexually reproducing organisms.

G.J.Mendel performed his experiments on several varieties of garden pea (Pisum sativum) and came up with the concept of factors controlling the traits and laws of inheritance.

Caenorhabditis elegans (C.elegans) is a species of nematode, which is widely used as a model organism for different researches, it is used as a central model system across biological disciplines. Many of the genes in the C.elegans shows homology with humans, which makes it an extremely useful model for human diseases, like studying Parkinson’s disease, mitochondrial diseases etc.

Zebrafish is also a model organism for biological research for studying early development.

All the model organisms possess certain features that make them a subject for experiments like - short life span, easy to grow, visible contrasting characteristics, large clutch size etc.