Drosophila Activity Monitor (DAM): A Method to Measure Locomotor Activity in Flies
Published: April 30, 2023
Abstract
Source: Chiu, J. C., et al. Assaying Locomotor Activity to Study Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Parameters in Drosophila. J. Vis. Exp. (2010).
This video describes the Drosophila activity monitor (DAM) system used to track locomotor activity. Researchers use activity data collected from the DAM to study circadian rhythms in fruit flies. The featured protocol clip shows how to load flies in the device and record activity data for circadian experiments.
Protocol
This protocol is an excerpt from Chiu et al., Assaying Locomotor Activity to Study Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Parameters in Drosophila, J. Vis. Exp. (2010). 1. Loading Flies into Activity Tubes and Locomotor Activity Monitoring System Prior to loading flies into activity tubes, turn on the incubators that will be used to house the activity monitors. Adjust the temperature using the incubator controls and set the light/dark r…
Representative Results
Figure 1: Eduction graphs generated using FaasX showing daily locomotor activity rhythms of rhythmic wild type flies (w per0 flies carrying a per+ transgene) (A and B) vs. arrhythmic w per0 mutants (C and D). Male flies were kept at 25 °C and entrained for 4 days in 12:12 LD (light: dark) cycles followed by seven days in DD (constant darkness). For each fly line, the locom…
Materials
| Drosophila activity monitor (DAM) | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | DAM2 or DAM5 | DAM2 monitors are more compact, and more can fit into a single incubator |
| Power supply interface unit (for DAM system) | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | PSIU9 | Includes PS9-1 AC Power Supply |
| Light controller | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | LC6 | |
| Pyrex glass tubes | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | PGT5, PGT7, and PGT10 | |
| Plastic activity tube caps | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | CAP5 | Yarn can be used instead of plastic caps. |
| DAM System data collection software | Trikinetics Inc.; Waltham, MA | Versions available for both Mac and PC | |
| FaasX software | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique | Only for Mac | |
| Insomniac 2.0 software | University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Runs on Matlab. Can be used on both PC and Macintosh. | |
| Environmental incubator with temperature and diurnal control, e.g. Percival incubator | Percival Scientific, Inc. | I-30BLL | Interior space dimension:Width: 65cm;Height: 86cm;Depth: 55cm |
| Environmental incubator with temperature and diurnal control, e.g. DigiTherm Heating/Cooling Incubator with Circadian Timed Lighting and Timed Temperature | Tritech Research, Inc. | 05DT2CIRC001 | Interior space dimension:Width: 36m;Height: 56m;Depth: 28cm |
| APC Smart-UPS 2200VA 120V (Emergency power backup unit) | APC | SU2200NET | Output Power Capacity of 1600 Watts |
| Sucrose | Sigma-Aldrich | S7903 | |
| Bacto Agar | BD Biosciences | 214010 | |
| TissuePrep Paraffin pellets | Fisher Scientific | T565 | Melting point 56 °C-57 °C |
| Block heater | VWR international | 12621-014 |
Cite This Article
Drosophila Activity Monitor (DAM): A Method to Measure Locomotor Activity in Flies. J. Vis. Exp. (Pending Publication), e20148, doi: (2023).