DEVELOPMENT OF EYE COLORS IN DROSOPHILA: PRODUCTION OF v⁺ HORMONE BY FAT BODIES

¹ From the School of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, California

Under normal genetic and environmental conditions fat-body cells produce v⁺ hormone after the time of puparium formation but not before. Attempts to induce hormone production by fat-body tissue before puparium formation were unsuccessful. Since it is shown that larval fat bodies of mature superfemale larvae contain v⁺ hormone, however, it is clear that the normal sequence of puparium formation and hormone production is not a necessary and invariable one.

Active solutions of v⁺ hormone are readily obtained by extracting prepupal fat bodies over practically the entire period of prepupal development.

It is shown that the so-called "starvation effect" on eye pigmentation involves a modification of genetically vermilion fat body cells such that they produce v⁺ hormone, whereas normally they are unable to do so. It is possible but not definitely established that a somewhat similar modification is brought about in cells of the Malpighian tubes by semistarvation of larvae.

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