Abstract
Inducing an injury specifically to Drosophila flight muscles is a difficult task, owing to the small size of the muscles and the presence of the cuticle. The protocol described below provides an easy and reproducible method to induce injury in the Drosophila flight muscles.
Keywords: Drosophila flight muscles, Injury, Regeneration, Insect satellite cells
Background
Muscles in vertebrates undergo regeneration, a process attributed to the Satellite cells, the resident stem cells. Our lab has recently shown that Drosophila flight muscles harbor stem cells similar to vertebrate satellite cells, namely insect satellite cells and show proliferation response to muscle injury (Chaturvedi et al., 2017). The ease of fly genetics and our method of inducing injury open up an opportunity to address relevant questions in the field of regenerative biology. We have standardized a protocol for injuring dorsal longitudinal muscles (DLMs) fibers with better precision, and this method can be used for investigating the repair mechanisms involved in muscles after the injury.
Materials and Reagents
Equipment
Software
Procedure
Data analysis
Image analysis and data processing were essentially performed as mentioned in Chaturvedi et al., 2017.
Recipes
Acknowledgments
This protocol was adapted from the article, Identification and functional characterization of muscle satellite cells in Drosophila by Chaturvedi et al., 2017. We thank National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the J C Bose Fellowship of the Government of India for funding. We acknowledge Central Imaging & Flow Cytometry Facility for using the confocal microscope and NCBS Fly facility. The authors are also thankful to Avishek Ghosh and Rajan Surendra Thakur from Prof. Raghu Padinjat’s laboratory for helping us to use the stereo microscope with a camera attachment. We have no conflict of interest to declare.
References
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