An international team of researchers led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Professor Alfredo Ruiz, has launched in this month’s issue of the journal Genome Research the first detailed physical map of the Drosophila buzzatii chromosomes. This fly species is used worldwide as a model for studies in evolutionary genetics. The investigation involved two steps. First, a genomic library was produced. This library comprises more than 18.000 random fragments of the fly’s genome inserted within bacterial cells. Each bacterial clone carries one of these DNA fragments, about 150.000 nucleotides long, and can be multiplied in a laboratory culture to amplify the fly’s DNA.
