Injection of Adult Drosophila Flies: A Method of Compound or Label Delivery
Published: April 30, 2023
Abstract
Source: Nazario-Toole, A. E., Wu, L. P. Assessing the Cellular Immune Response of the Fruit Fly, Drosophila melanogaster, Using an In Vivo Phagocytosis Assay. J. Vis. Exp. (2019).
This video describes how to perform an injection of live adult flies and includes an example protocol in which labeled particles and trypan blue are injected in fly abdomens to assay phagocytosis.
Protocol
This protocol is an excerpt from Nazario-Toole and Wu, Assessing the Cellular Immune Response of the Fruit Fly, Drosophila melanogaster, Using an In Vivo Phagocytosis Assay, J. Vis. Exp. (2019). 1. Prepare Fluorescein particles for injection Reconstitute 10 mg of commercially available, heat-killed bacteria particles labeled with fluorescein (see Table of Materials) to a stock concentration of 10 mg/mL by adding 990 µL ster…
Materials
| 5430-10 PicoNozzle Kit | World Precision Instruments | 5430-10 | Holder for 1.0mm pipette |
| E. coli (K-12 Strain) BioParticles, Fluorescein conjugate | Invitrogen | E2861 | Killed E. coli labeled with FITC (Fluorescein). Use to test phagocyte recogntion and uptake of gram-negative bacteria. (~494/~518 nm) |
| Needle Pipette Puller | David Kopf Instruments | Model 725 | |
| Pneumatic PicoPump PV820 | World Precision Instruments | SYS-PV820 | The World Precision Instruments Pneumatic PicoPump PV820 uses differential pressures to hold liquid in the glass needle between injections. The user manually controls short bursts of gas pressure to expel the liquid – allowing delivery of sub-nanoliter volumes. The amount of liquid delivered depends on two main variables – the size of the glass needle opening and the amount of time injection pressure is applied. set the instrument to 100 ms "TIMED" mode. |
| Thin Wall Glass Capillaries | World Precision Instruments | TW100F-3 | Needles for injection. OD = 1.0 mm |
| Trypan Blue Solution (0.4%) | Sigma | T8154 | Used to quench extracellular fluorescence of Fluorescein, Alexa Fluor, or Texas Red labeled particles. |
Cite This Article
Injection of Adult Drosophila Flies: A Method of Compound or Label Delivery. J. Vis. Exp. (Pending Publication), e20113, doi: (2023).