This project is a study of proteins that are found only in the retina, with the objective of elucidating their roles in vision. The organism used is the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. It offers a number of advantages as experimental subject. The generation time is extremely short, it is easily reared in the laboratory, and, perhaps most significant, it's genetics is probably better worked out than for any other animal species. During this project the genes encoding some of the proteins that are specific to the retinal will be isolated, localized and their chemical structure determined. Mutant flies in which some of these proteins are defective will be prepared (many are already available in Dr. Pak's laboratory) and the exact nature of the mutations will be determined by comparison of the genes with those of normal "wild type" flies. All of this will contribute to a molecular genetic dissection of the visual system.
