Evolution of acid phosphatase-1 in the genus Drosophilia. Immunological studies.

The enzyme acid phosphatase-1 was partially purified from 10 Drosophila species. Four antisera were produced and the ten enzymes were reacted against each serum. The method used to quantitate the reactions involved the electrophoretic separation of antigen-antibody complexes from uncomplexed enzyme, followed by densitometry of the free enzyme. Immunological distances were used to obtain correlation coefficients for all pairwise combinations of the 10 species. From these correlation coefficients, a dendrogram was constructed which is very similar to one diagramming the presumed phylogenetic relationships of the ten species. In addition, the data indicate acid phosphatase-1 has evolved at different rates in different lineages within the genus. A preliminary estimate of the unit evolutionary period for this enzyme is 3.25 million years. The method of determining immunological distances which was used in this study is compared to the method of microcomplement fixation in the Discussion.