Roots: Boris ephrussi – his work in genetics

✍ Scribed by Professor J. R. S. Fincham

• Book ID: 101710881
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 232 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.950140511

✦ Synopsis

Boris Ephrussi's training was in embryology. His research for his doctor's degree was partly on growth and regeneration in tissue cultures. carried out under the direction of the cytologist and cell biologist Emmanuel Faurk-Fremiet, and partly on chemical changes during the development of the sea urchin egg and the effects of temperature. supervised by the biochemist Louis Rapkine. His subsequent research was driven by a desire to understand the genetic control of cellular differentiation in the development of the organism.

Ephrussi was one of the first to realize the importance of defining the chemical effects of specific genes. He chose Drosophila eye pigment synthesis as a suitable system for the pursuit of his aim, having been initiated into Drosophila genetics by A. H. Sturtevant at the California Institute of Technology in 1934-35. On his return to France he was joined by G. W. Beadle in a series of experiments that, through imaginal eye disc transplants from one type of mutant to another, showed that the wild-type claret (ca+), vermilion ( v + ) and cinnabar (en+) genes acted sequentially in the synthesis of the brown eye pigment .

From our modern perspective, it seems strange that Beadle and Ephrussi did not, at that time, make the hypothetical connection between genes and enzymes. Instead, they referred to the gene products noncommittally as "substances"; in other publications Ephrussi likened them to hormones. It was only after Beadle had established his collaboration with E. L. Tatum at Stanford University, and they had switched from Drosophila eye pigments to auxotrophic mutants in the fungus Neurospora crassa. that the "one gene -J. R. S. Fincham was formerly Balfour Professor of