Monosodium glutamate (MSG)가 초파리 (Drosophila melanogaster)의 발생에 미치는 영향에 관하여

Abstract

Monosodium glutamate(MSG) is a widely used food additive. Some reports described its positive effect and the others, negative effect on rat, monkey, human or drosophilid flies. Because of each conflicting report the present investigation was undertaken to study the effects of MSG on the development of Drosophila melanogaster. The two strains of D. melanogaster, Oregon-R and Sinchon-I were used and MSG as well as cane sugar(as the second control) media were prepared by adding MSG or cane sugar at various concentrations to the standard food media for the present study. Ten flies(Male 5, Female 5) were placed in each vial and the numbers of F_(1) flies emerged from it were counted. The results are presented below: 1. The numbers of F_(1) flies decrease as the concentration of MSG increase, implying that MSG has an inhibitory effect on the development of D. melanogaster. 2. The effects of cane sugar show an enhancing effect rather than an inhibitory one. 3. The productivity of the Sinchon-I strain shows higher value than the Oregon-R. This may be interpreted to be due to the difference of inbreeding period. 4. The Muller-5 test shows negative result, suggesting that MSG may be not mutagenic.