Ja William W, Carvalho Gil B, Mak Elizabeth M, de la Rosa Noelle N, Fang Annie Y, Liong Jonathan C, Brummel Ted, Benzer Seymour
Division of Biology 156-29, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 May 15;104(20):8253-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0702726104. Epub 2007 May 9.
Studies of feeding behavior in genetically tractable invertebrate model systems have been limited by the lack of proper methodology. We introduce the Capillary Feeder (CAFE), a method allowing precise, real-time measurement of ingestion by individual or grouped fruit flies on the scale of minutes to days. Using this technique, we conducted the first quantitative analysis of prandial behavior in Drosophila melanogaster. Our results allow the dissection of feeding into discrete bouts of ingestion, defining two separate parameters, meal volume and frequency, that can be uncoupled and thus are likely to be independently regulated. In addition, our long-term measurements show that flies can ingest as much as 1.7x their body mass over 24 h. Besides the study of appetite, the CAFE can be used to monitor oral drug delivery. As an illustration, we used the CAFE to test the effects of dietary supplementation with two compounds, paraquat and ethanol, on food ingestion and preference. Paraquat, a prooxidant widely used in stress tests, had a strong anorexigenic effect. In contrast, in a feeding preference assay, ethanol-laced food, but not ethanol by itself, acted as an attractant.
在基因易处理的无脊椎动物模型系统中，对摄食行为的研究一直受到缺乏适当方法的限制。我们引入了毛细管喂食器（CAFE），这是一种能够在数分钟到数天的时间尺度上，对单个或成群的果蝇摄食进行精确实时测量的方法。利用这项技术，我们对黑腹果蝇的进食行为进行了首次定量分析。我们的结果能够将摄食分解为离散的进食回合，定义了两个独立的参数，即进食量和进食频率，它们可以分开，因此可能受到独立调节。此外，我们的长期测量表明，果蝇在24小时内可以摄取多达其体重1.7倍的食物。除了用于研究食欲，CAFE还可用于监测口服药物递送。作为例证，我们使用CAFE测试了两种化合物百草枯和乙醇的膳食补充对食物摄取和偏好的影响。百草枯是一种广泛用于应激测试的促氧化剂，具有强烈的厌食作用。相比之下，在进食偏好试验中，含乙醇的食物而非乙醇本身起到了引诱剂的作用。
