Abstract
Differences among allelic isozymes at Est-α or Est-β locus of D. virilis, as well as the differences between α- and β-esterases, were studied by different immunological techniques; Ouchterlony double diffusion, immunoelectrophoresis and immunochemical cross-reaction. Antisera were made against two different antigenic preparations, Est-α8 and Est-βB isozymes. The results of all immunological tests indicated coincidentally that allelic variants of α- or β-esterase were immunologically identical but these two groups were completely distinct concerning antigenic determinants.
Neither anti-α8 nor anti-βB serum reacted with “null” fly (silent allele homozygote α0β0) extract. No precipitin line was obtained for the null strain in either Ouchterlony nor immunoelectrophoretic tests. The analyses of adsorption tests demonstrated that the silent alleles examined (α0 and β0) did not synthesize any cross-reacting proteins. In similar ways it also became apparent that the βD' strain which gave a very faint band in the esterase zymogram produced a very little amount of cross-reacting materials, only between one eighth and one fourth of the other β-esterase variants.
