The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is a powerful experimental model in which to study integrated function, especially the structural and functional basis of flight. Illustrated here are the different organizational levels of the Drosophila flight system, separated by powers of ten (from Maughan & Vigoreaux, NIPS 14, 87-92, 1999). To understand the role of phosphorylation of the myosin regulatory light chain (RLC), for example, we engineered a point mutation in the phosphorylation site and examined the structural and functional consequences at multiple levels.
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