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Long-term in vivo imaging of Drosophila larvae

Nature Protocols volume 15, pages 1158–1187 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Drosophila larva has been used to investigate many processes in cell biology, including morphogenesis, physiology and responses to drugs and new therapeutic compounds. Despite its enormous potential as a model system, longer-term live imaging has been technically challenging because of a lack of efficient methods for immobilizing larvae for extended periods. We describe here a simple procedure for anesthetization and uninterrupted long-term in vivo imaging of the epidermis and other larval organs, including gut, imaginal discs, neurons, fat body, tracheae, muscles and hemocytes, for up to 8 h. We also include a procedure for probing cell properties by laser ablation. We provide a survey of the effects of different anesthetics, demonstrating that short exposure to diethyl ether is the most effective for long-term immobilization of larvae. This protocol does not require specific expertise beyond basic Drosophila genetics and husbandry, and confocal microscopy. It enables high-resolution studies of many systemic and subcellular processes in larvae.

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Fig. 1: Effect of different anesthetics on larval survival.
Fig. 2: Outline of the experimental procedure.
Fig. 3: Overview of equipment required to anesthetize larvae.
Fig. 4: Construction of the larval cage.
Fig. 5: Construction of anesthetization chamber.
Fig. 6: Anesthetization and mounting the larvae for live imaging.
Fig. 7: Live imaging of inner organs and subcellular organelles.
Fig. 8: Epidermis of Drosophila larva.
Fig. 9: Signs of reduced larval vitality.
Fig. 10: Single- and multi-cell laser wounding in the larval epidermis.
Fig. 11: Live imaging of insulin/PIP3/FOXO signaling and the effect of reduced insulin receptor signaling on PIP3.

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Data availability

All data generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to M. Kakanj for her photographic and graphical support. We thank S. Roth, N. Riddiford, A. Schauss, F. Papagiannouli, V. Böhm and C. Lesch for critical reading of manuscript, comments and helpful discussions. We thank A. Schauss, P. Zentis and C. Jüngst from the CECAD imaging facility in Cologne (University of Cologne, Cluster of Excellence in Ageing Research) for support and the Bloomington, VDRC and DGGR stock centers for fly strains. This work was supported by grants from the European Regional Development Fund and the German state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW im Ziel 2) to S.A.E. and L.P., a CMMC grant to M.L. and S.A.E., a CECAD grand by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy, grant EXC-2030/1-390661388 to M.L. and an EMBL research fellowship to P.K.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Parisa Kakanj & Maria Leptin

  2. Department of Biological Mechanisms of Ageing, Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany

    Parisa Kakanj & Linda Partridge

  3. Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Parisa Kakanj, Sabine A. Eming & Maria Leptin

  4. Directors’ Research Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany

    Parisa Kakanj & Maria Leptin

  5. Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Parisa Kakanj, Sabine A. Eming, Linda Partridge & Maria Leptin

  6. Department of Dermatology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Sabine A. Eming

  7. Institute of Healthy Ageing, Department of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment, University College London, London, UK

    Linda Partridge

Authors
  1. Parisa Kakanj
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  2. Sabine A. Eming
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  3. Linda Partridge
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Contributions

P.K. conceived, designed and developed the long-term live imaging and laser ablation protocol for Drosophila larvae; performed all experiments; and prepared the figures and tables. P.K., M.L. and L.P. analyzed and discussed the data and drafted the manuscript. S.A.E. provided input on wound healing analysis and discussed the data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Parisa Kakanj, Linda Partridge or Maria Leptin.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Protocols thanks Greg Macleod and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Related links

Key references using this protocol

Kakanj, P. et al. Nat. Commun. 7, 12972 (2016): https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12972

Beati, H. et al. J. Cell Biol. 217, 1079–1095 (2018): https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201610098

Supplementary information

Supplementary Video 1 | Live imaging of mitochondria during epidermal wound healing.

Live imaging of mitochondria (green) dynamics during epidermal wound healing. Single-cell wound in the dorsal epidermis of Drosophila L3 larva expressing mito-GFP (green) and DsRed2-Nuc (magenta) to mark mitochondria and nuclei in the epidermis: A58>mito-GFP; DsRed2-Nuc (w1118; UAS-mito-HA-GFP/+; A58-Gal4, DsRed2-Nuc/+). Each frame is a merge of 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7a-b.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Video 2 | Live imaging of ER vesicle trafficking.

Live imaging of ER vesicle (green) trafficking between ER and Golgi in the epidermis of Drosophila L3 larva expressing e22c>; RFP-KDEL (w1118; e22c-Gal4/+; UASp-RFP.KDEL/+). KDEL is an ER marker, encodes a sequence to prevent secretion of the protein form ER or retrieval of ER proteins from the Golgi. Each frame is a single plane. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7c-d.

Supplementary Video 3 | Live imaging of fat body.

Live imaging of fat body (green) in the L3 larvae expressing c7>mCD8-GFP (w1118; c7-Gal4/+; UAS-mCD8-GFP/+). The mCD8-GFP marks the cell membranes. Each frame is a single plane. Scale bars: first movie 80 µm and second movie 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7e-f.

Supplementary Video 4 | Live imaging of trachea.

Live imaging of trachea (green) in the early L3 larvae in two individuals both expressing btl>GFP (w1118; btl-Gal4, UAS-GFP; +). Each frame is a merge of 21 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bar: (a,b) 17 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7g-h.

Supplementary Video 5 | Live imaging of wing imaginal disc.

First movie shows a live imaging through the z-stacks of dorsal compartment of wing imaginal disk (grey) in late L3 larva expressing hh>mCD8-GFP (w1118; +; hh-Gal4, UAS-mCD8-GFP/+). The mCD8-GFP marks the cell membranes. Each frame is a single plane of z-stacks (54 stacks with 1µm space). Scale bar: 50 μm. Second movie shows a short live imaging of entire imaginal disk (green) in early L3 larvae expressing esg>GFP (w1118; esg-Gal4, UAS-GFP/+; +). Each frame is a single plane. Scale bar: 100 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7i-k.

Supplementary Video 6 | Live imaging of peripheral neurons.

Live imaging of peripheral neuron (black) in the L3 larva expressing mCD8-GFP (black) to mark cell membranes of the neurons: elav>mCD8-GFP (w1118, elave-Gal4/UAS-mCD8-GFP; UAS-mCD8-GFP/+; UAS-mCD8-GFP/+). Each frame is a merge of 21 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bar: 15 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7m.

Supplementary Video 7 | Live imaging of a chordotonal organ.

Live imaging of lateral pentascolopidial (Lch5) organ (green) in L3 larva expressing mCD8-GFP (green) to mark cell membranes: elav>mCD8-GFP (w1118, elave-Gal4/UAS-mCD8-GFP; UAS-mCD8-GFP/+; UAS-mCD8-GFP/+). The Lch5 organ is a particular chordotonal organ, which plays a role by proprioceptive locomotion control. Each frame is a single plane. Scale bar: 8 μm.

Supplementary Video 8 | Live imaging of midgut enterocytes.

Live imaging of midgut enterocytes cells (green) in the L3 larva expressing NP1>GFP-Atg8a; foxo (w1118; NP1-Gal4/UAS-GFP-Atg8a; UAS-foxo/+). Overexpression of FOXO in the midgut enterocytes induces autophagy (green dots are autophagosomes). The fine-focus was changed during the live imaging to image through different planes. Each frame is a single plane. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7n.

Supplementary Video 9 | Live imaging of midgut interstitial cells.

Live imaging of midgut interstitial cells (green) in the L3 larva expressing NP1>GFP-Atg8a; foxo (w1118; NP1-Gal4/UAS-GFP-Atg8a; UAS-foxo/+). Overexpression of FOXO induces autophagy in the midgut interstitial cells (green dots are autophagosomes). The fine-focus was changed during the live imaging to image through different planes. Each frame is a single plane. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7o.

Supplementary Video 10 | Live imaging of hemocytes.

Live imaging of haemocytes in the L3 larva expressing Hml>dsRed (magenta, in the first movie) to mark the entire cytoplasm of the haemocytes and Jupiter (green, in the second movie) to mark the microtubules of the haemocytes: Hml>dsRed (w1118; Hml-Gal4/+; UAS-dsRed/+) and Jupiter-GFP trap (w1118; +; Jupiter-GFP). Each frame is a merge of 21 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bars: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 7p-q.

Supplementary Video 11 | Live imaging of muscle.

First movie shows live imaging of dorsal muscles (green) in L3 larva expressing MHC>GFP-Atg8a; foxo (w1118; MHC-Gal4/UAS-GFP-Atg8a; UAS-foxo/+), in which high level of FOXO induces autophagy (green dots are autophagosomes). Second movie shoes live imaging of dorsal muscles (green) in L3 larva expressing Nrg-GFP t

Supplementary Video 12 | Single- and multicell laser ablation and wound healing process.

Live imaging of single-cell (first movie) and multi-cell (second movie) laser wounding in the dorsal epidermis of L3 larva expressing Src-GFP (green) and DsRed2-Nuc (magenta) to mark cell membrane and nuclei in the epidermis: A58>Src- GFP,DsRed2-Nuc (w1118; +; A58-Gal4, UAS-Src-GFP, UAS-DsRed2-Nuc/+). Each frame is a merge of 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bars: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 10.

Supplementary Video 13 | Dynamic insulin/PIP3/FOXO signaling during wound healing.

Redistribution of PIP3 reporter, tGPH (green) and FOXO (magenta) shuttling after wounding in the cells directly surrounding the wound. Wound healing was performed in the dorsal epidermis of L3 larva expressing tGPH (tubulin:GFP-PH) and foxo-mCherry (w-; tGPH; endo-dfoxo-v3-mCherry). Each frame is a merge of 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 11a.

Supplementary Video 14 | Effect of reduced insulin receptor signaling.

Lowering of insulin receptor signalling in the larvae by expressing a dominant negative version of the insulin receptor (InRDN), reduced accumulation of the PIP3-reporter tGPH (back) at the wound edges and slows down the wound healing processes. Transgene genotypes: control (w1118; tGPH/+; A58-Gal4/+) and A58>InRDN (w1118; tGPH/+; A58-Gal4/UAS- InRDN). Each frame is a merge of 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bar: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 11b.

Supplementary Video 15 | Long exposure to anesthetic increases larval lethality during live imaging.

The early L3 instar larva expressing Src-GFP (green) and DsRed2-Nuc (magenta) was exposed for 6 min instead of 3.5 min to diethyl ether. A single-cell laser wound was made in the dorsal epidermis. The larva died during the experiment. Transgene genotypes of larvae: A58>Src- GFP,DsRed2-Nuc (w1118; +; A58-Gal4, UAS-Src-GFP, UAS-DsRed2-Nuc/+). Projections of a time-lapse series. Each frame is merged from 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bars: 20 μm. Corresponds to Fig. 9g.

Supplementary Video 16 | Insufficient immobilization for long-term live imaging.

Example of a larva that did not remain immobile for the entire experiment. The reason for the larva waking up could be that (i) the exposure to diethyl ether was to short or (ii) the larvae in larval cage were too crowed or (iii) they were not completely dried (Table 5, Step 17). A single-cell laser wound was produced in the dorsal epidermis of a larva expressing Src-GFP (green) and DsRed2-Nuc (magenta) and live imaged. Transgene genotypes of larvae: A58>Src- GFP,DsRed2-Nuc (w1118; +; A58-Gal4, UAS-Src-GFP, UAS-DsRed2-Nuc/+). Projections of a time-lapse series in early L3 larvae. Each frame is merged from 57 planes spaced 0.28 μm apart. Scale bars: 20 μm.

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Kakanj, P., Eming, S.A., Partridge, L. et al. Long-term in vivo imaging of Drosophila larvae. Nat Protoc 15, 1158–1187 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-019-0282-z

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