Bang senseless is a gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 identified in Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster is a species of Diptera, or the order of flies, in the family Drosophilidae. The species is known generally as the common fruit fly or vinegar fly. Starting from Charles W...

that is known to yield seizure

Seizure

An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...

-like activity in mutant phenotypes.

Location

Bang senseless has been localized to 1-54, left of forked (f) and right of scalloped (sd).

Inducing Seizure Activity

Seizures can be induced by mechanical shock, electrical shock, or high-frequency visual stimuli such as strobe light. Mechanical shock can be achieved by vortexing bang senseless mutants in a small vial for ~10 seconds on a VWR vortex set to its maximum setting.

Alleles

Aside from the wild-type allele

Allele

An allele is one of two or more forms of a gene or a genetic locus . "Allel" is an abbreviation of allelomorph. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation...

, two mutant alleles have been identified: bss¹ & bss².

bss¹

The bss¹ mutants typically recover from seizure after 100-400 seconds.

bss²

Less is known about the bss² allele, but it is known that it is also a paralytic mutant (prone to seizure-like activity).