New tool for tudying the rhythmic behavior of oviposition in Drosophila melanogaster.

RIVA, S; RISAU GUSMAN S; GLEISER, PABLO M.; LIBKIND D; FRANCO, DL

San Carlos de Bariloche

Encuentro; IV GRAFOB; 2018

Grupo Argentina de Fotobiología

The biological clocks allow organisms to anticipate changes in theenvironment to achieve a proper adaptation. In Drosophila spp., theperiodic egg-laying behavior, or oviposition, is one of the severalphysiological processes regulated in a circadian fashion. However,this rhythmic behavior is one of the less-studied rhythms, perhapsdue to the difficulties involved in monitoring and recording thisbehavior.For example, collection and egg counting is usually done manually,making the experiments particularly demanding and labor-intensive. In our laboratory, we developed an automated device for monitoring oviposition behavior in Drosophila melanoganster. Our device allowssimultaneous analysis of 21 flies individually, and can be operatedby a single person. In addition, since the sampling interval isautomatically controlled, it becomes possible to test different timeintervals to determine which is the most suitable to measure thisrhythmic behavior. With this device we can detect both rhythmic andarrhythmics phenotypes beingthe percentages of rhythmicity and periods similar to those obtainedwith the previous manual methodology. Moreover,the number of rhythmic flies over the total (for genotypes consideredrhythmic) is similar between manual vs semi-authomatic methodologies,which supports the fact that the differences between themethodologies do not affect the results Therefore,we developed a novel device for the study of oviposition behavior.