The allele symbol [*] is used for a loss-of-function allele of a gene when the specific mutant allele is not known. So, w[*] is simply an unknown loss-of-function allele of white (so it gives white eyes). Similarly, y[*], v[*] etc., are loss-of-function alleles of y, v, etc.

It is not uncommon for a stock to have a balancer (like CyO or TM3) "segregating" or "floating" (you can read about balancers here). It just means that the balancer is present in the stock but not in all flies.

Sometimes a balancer is segregating in a stock because the stock needs it to survive. If, for instance, an insertion is homozygous viable but sterile, then you will see lots of homozygous flies but only the balanced flies will produce new progeny, thus maintaining the balancer in the stock. Likewise, some insertions are "semilethal". In these cases, the insertion chromosome is homozygous viable but the homozygotes are either less healthy or less fertile than their balanced siblings such that the balanced siblings are more fit and make more kids thus maintaining the balancer in the stock.

Be aware that, for the most part, the only time we phenotype-check a stock is when we first get it. So there will be cases where we have noted that a balancer is segregating but now there is no balancer in the stock. And visa versa, there will be cases where we noted that homozygotes were present and now there are none (when a balancer is present, it makes it easier for the nonbalancer chromosome to pick up and keep deleterious mutations to the point where it becomes homozygous lethal and the balancer chromosome becomes a necessity for the fly to live). So always check when you get a new stock to see its current state!

GAL4/UAS is a system co-opted from yeast (it is part of the yeast galactose regulatory system; UAS stands for Upstream Activating Sequence). It was adapted for flies by Brand and Perrimon, 1993. GAL4 is a protein that regulates gene transcription by binding to UAS sequences on the chromosome and turning on expression of whatever gene is next door. Fly people have taken GAL4 and put it under the control of all kinds of promoters. We have GAL4 lines that express everywhere in the fly, or only in neurons, or only in dopaminergic neurons, etc etc. We have thousands of GAL4 lines that express at many different times and in many different tissues (see our GAL4 pages).

If you take a line carrying a UAS construct composed of UAS sequences next to, say, a human disease gene like SNCA (see schematic below) and cross it to a GAL4 line that expresses GAL4 in, say, dopaminergic neurons, then in the progeny that inherit GAL4 from one parent and UAS from the other, GAL4 is turned on in dopaminergic neurons, the GAL4 protein then binds to the UAS sequences and turns on expression of SNCA. So now you have SNCA expressed in dopaminergic neurons.

The system is great because it means you only have to make one UAS construct for your gene of interest and you can express that gene in many many different times and places by crossing that one line to different GAL4 lines. Fly people use the system a LOT.  See our UAS pages for available UAS stocks.

Gene symbols preceded by four letters and a backslash indicate genes derived from a species other than D. melanogaster. Scer is the FlyBase species abbreviation for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Hsap is the abbreviation for Homo sapiens.

The Mi{MIC} element contains a mutagenic gene trap cassette that consists of a splice acceptor site, stop codons in all three reading frame, the coding sequence of EGFP and an SV40 polyadenylation signal. A y[+mDint2] marker is present downstream of this sequence. The gene trap cassette and the y[+mDint2] marker are flanked by inverted attP sites, which allows for the replacement of this entire sequence with DNA from a compatible donor plasmid (where the sequence to be inserted is flanked by inverted attB sites) through recombination-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) driven by the phiC31:int integrase (Venken et al., 2011, Nagarkar-Jaiswal et al., 2015). 

Note that the EGFP sequence present in the Mi{MIC} element does not play a role in its mutagenic activity and is typically not expressed in Mi{MIC} insertions that are in coding introns. However, a cryptic ribosomal initiation site is present before the EGFP sequence, and thus if a Mi{MIC} element is inserted in the 5'UTR of a gene, it can act as a gene trap, resulting in EGFP expression in these cases (Kanca et al., 2017).

What are the different VALIUM vectors for?
The majority of RNAi constructs generated by the Transgenic RNAi Project (TRiP) use VALIUM (Vermilion-AttB-Loxp-Intron-UAS-MCS) series of vectors for the incorporation into attP landing sites (see the TRiP website for details).

VALIUM1 - these are the "weakest" and very likely require the inclusion of UAS -Dicer2 for maximum effect.
VALIUM10 - UAS-Dicer2 likely not needed; works well in the soma but usually not as well as VALIUM20.
VALIUM20 - UAS-Dicer2 not needed as they use shRNAs; usually gives stronger effects than VALIUM10 in the soma; also works well in the germline.
VALIUM21 and VALIUM22 - UAS-Dicer2 not needed as they use shRNAs; both contain a P transposase basal promoter and a K10 polyA for germline expression. These do not work well, if at all, in the soma.

Why does red eye color segregate with the X chromosome?
TRiP stocks do not contain a mini-white marker - the attP target site is marked with y[+] and the TRiP insertion itself is marked with v[+]. The X chromosome in these stocks carries y and v mutations but does NOT carry a w mutation, so the red eye color you are seeing is coming from the wild-type w gene on the X.

Am I seeing Scutoid?
In some stocks, the X chromosome also carries sc[*] which indicates the presence of an unspecified allele of sc that results in the loss of scutellar bristles (very similar to the phenotype caused by sna[Sco], aka Scutoid). sc[*] can be very variable and is sometimes completely suppressed.

What are good controls?
See the TRiP RNAi Toolbox page for the stocks used to make the TRiP insertions and generate stable stocks. This page also has a list of control stocks suggested by the TRiP.

For many collections there likely isn't a good control (many collections weren't made with the idea of keeping the backgrounds similar). Many people use an unrelated insertion from the collection in question as a control in the place of the parental stock. Another alternative is to pick a background strain and backcross your allele of interest to the background strain multiple times (this is more laborious but if your assay is really sensitive to background effects, it is potentially the best way to go).

BSC deficiencies and Exelixis insertions

The background stock for the Exelixis collection is stock# 6326 w[1118]. Be aware that some of the X chromosome insertions may have a different background. To get a list of stocks that can be used to manipulate Exelixis stocks and maintain the background see Generating deletions from Exelixis insertions. These are also the stocks to use for the BSC Deficiencies.

DrosDel deficiencies and BSC duplications 

We also have DrosDel background stocks. These are also the background for the BSC duplications and for most of the Mi{ET1}s.

The following stocks were isolated at the same time as the iso w[1118] for the DrosDel project (made from Canton-S) and are likely related:
9514 Canton-S-iso2B
9515 Canton-S-iso2G
9516 Canton-S-iso3A
9517 Canton-S-iso3H

P{SUPor-P}

The following stocks should be related to P{SUPor-P}'s in a y[1]; ry[506] background. The X chromosome in these is likely the same as the X chromosome carrying P{SUPor-P} insertions on a y[1] chromosome (and maybe the autosomes as well).

4404 y[1]; ry[506] Pr[1] Bsb[1]/TM3, ry[RK] Sb[1] Ser[1]
4405 y[1]; ry[506]
4406 y[1]; ry[506]; C(4)RM, ci[1] ey[R]/0
4407 y[1]; wg[Sp-1]/SM1; ry[506]
4408 C(1;Y)1, y[1]/0; ry[506]
5369 y[1]; wg[Sp-1]/CyO, P{y[+mDint2] w[BR.E.BR]=SUPor-P}RR1; ry[506]

Mi{ET1}

y[1] w[67c23] Mi{ET1} lines were generated in the DrosDel w[1118] iso background (iso31, our stk# 5905) but were balanced using the following two lines:
y[1] w[67c23]; L[2]/CyO
y[1] w[67c23]; D[1]/TM3, Sb[1]

We don't seem to have the two lines above but we note these same two lines were also used to stock the P{EPgy2} collection and we do have the P{EPgy2} ammo line stk# 24891  y[1] w[67c23]; L[1]/CyO, P{w[+mC] y[+mDint2]=EPgy2}CG2201[EY00000] which we assume is related.

w[1118] Mi{ET1} lines were generated  in the w[1118] iso31 background (stk# 5905). They were likely balanced with these two stocks:
stk# 5906 w[1118]/Dp(1;Y)y[+]; TM2/TM6C, Sb[1]
stk# 5907 w[1118]/Dp(1;Y)y[+]; sna[Sco]/SM6a

Insertions on the 4th chromosome are not coisogenic with the rest of the collection.

Mi{MIC}

These lines have a mixed background composed of the Bellen lab y[1] w[*] stock and phiC31 lines used for the crossing scheme.

TRiP RNAi lines

See the TRiP RNAi Toolbox page for the stocks used to make the collection and for controls suggested by the TRiP.

TRiP sgRNA lines

See the TRiP sgRNA page for a control suggested by the TRiP.

Yes! RRIDs for Bloomington stocks are RRID:BDSC_stocknumber, for example the RRID for stock #58988 is RRID:BDSC_58988. These RRIDs can also be found at the top of our stock report pages (see example below).

Using RRIDs in your publications will not only help other researchers but also helps the BDSC in tracking the use of stocks and the stock center which is a necessary task for funding purposes. We encourage their use!

RRIDs (see the FAQ for "What is an RRID?") for model organisms are currently restricted to "organisms" (i.e. stocks). Currently, the only way to get an official RRID from RII (Research Resource Initiative) is to make your stock part of a public collection (donate your stock to BDSC, DGGR, VDRC, etc.).

When you share your stock with BDSC, it will get assigned a stock ID number from BDSC then an RRID from the RII. The RRID for a BDSC stock will be RRID:BDSC_stockIDnumber. This is also true for the Kyoto stock center (RRID:DGGR_stockIDnumber). Stocks at FlyORF, Vienna (VDRC), or Cornell (NDSSC) get their RRIDs assigned using the FlyBase stock number (RRID:FlyBase_FBst).

Some examples of RRIDs:

The concept of making RRIDs only for "organisms" is somewhat of a challenge for flies since 1) we mix and match components with such ease that a "stock" can be fleeting thing and 2) the fly community has no mechanism for giving stable stock numbers to stocks which are not part of a public collection (e.g. lab stocks).

If your stock isn't at a public stock center and therefore doesn't have an RRID, we recommend following FlyBase guidelines for authors when describing fly reagents:
1) use FlyBase identifiers for published stock components whenever possible
2) if a stock or component is published but isn't in FlyBase, cite the relevant reference
3) describe new fly stocks and/or components as completely as possible (see the Guidelines for suggestions on what to include).

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing is an international agreement that directs benefits from the use of biological resources to the countries of origin. It requires scientists to track the chain of possession for any genetic resource collected since the protocol went into effect from a country that has not waived its claims under the protocol.

The recordkeeping requirements of the Nagoya Protocol do not apply to BDSC stocks because, to our knowledge, all genetic components from natural populations were collected prior to the date the protocol went into effect, from countries that are not signatories, from countries that have waived their claims under the protocol, or from populations not covered by the protocol—or they were collected under more than one of these conditions.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please contact us

U.S. scientists must obtain approval from their Institutional Biosafety Committee before culturing transgenic Drosophila stocks or using them in experiments to comply with the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules. If you have not already filed the appropriate paperwork, we suggest you contact the research compliance office at your institution prior to ordering.

Click Cart in the upper right of the homepage to order stocks. You can add stocks to your shopping cart in several ways, described in How To Order.

See our fees page for a description of charges for stocks, shipping and handling.

Contact us to change your group's default shipping address or to add an alternate shipping address that you can then select when submitting an order.

BUN stands for 'Bloomington User Number'. This is your account number.

We cannot provide a large number of flies of the same genotype. We keep thousands of genotypes, but have a relatively small number of flies of each genotype available for distribution at any given time. Please order far enough in advance that you can expand your stocks and generate the number of flies you need for your class. See Order Fulfillment for additional information.

If you need larger numbers of flies quickly or kits for doing crosses, you could check with Carolina Biological to see if they have something that fits your needs.

No, we cannot take credit card information over the phone. See Pay for an Order for instructions for making a payment online or sending us a purchase order.

We need to process your order to determine the charges. Orders are processed in batch twice a week (on Mondays and Thursdays).

If a stock you paid for cannot be shipped we issue a BDSC account credit that will be applied automatically to a future order. If you paid by credit card and prefer a refund instead of a BDSC credit just let us know.

Sometimes stocks are not sent because they are sick or have died, or the demand for a certain stock was too great for our supplies. Unsent stocks should not appear on your user information sheets and are listed as "Not shipped" on the order detail page. You will not be charged for unshipped stocks (a credit will be issued if you paid in advance). If your group still needs a stock that was not sent, please wait two to three weeks and order it again from our website. If you have questions about an unsent stock, contact Kim Cook or send an email to our general BDSC mailbox (flystock AT iu.edu).

We put about 15-20 adult flies in a vial to establish a new culture. Be aware that it is not uncommon for adults to die in transit, but eggs and larvae, which are hardier, typically survive to produce a sustainable culture.

First confirm that your order has shipped. Log in to the BDSC website (click on the LOG IN link in the upper-right and use your email address and your password to log in). Click on the ACCOUNT link in the upper-right, then click Orders in the left sidebar menu. A shipment date will appear next to the order if the order was finalized.See Problems in the Box if your order has shipped but you haven't received it.

A dead culture is one in which the eggs and larvae as well as the adults were killed in the shipping process, or one in which the adults you have are unable to reproduce. If you receive vials that have no living adults or larvae, please wait a few days to see if any eggs survived. If you still have no larvae after a few days, please read our Replacement Policy and then order a replacement from our website within 6 weeks of the original shipment date. Type the stock number in the Order Form and add it to the cart, click "Checkout", then check the box in the DOA column and submit the order (see Checkout to Submit Your Order on the How to Order page for details). We share the risk of shipment loss with you by replacing any stock that dies in transit once without charging a stock or handling fee (but you will pay for insulation if requested). You will be required to pay any shipping charges. If the replacement shipment also dies in transit our normal charges will apply to additional orders for the lost stock or stocks. It is not necessary to contact us in advance about DOA orders.