Wong Richard, Piper Matthew D W, Wertheim Bregje, Partridge Linda
Institute of Healthy Ageing, and GEE, University College London, London, UK.
PLoS One. 2009 Jun 26;4(6):e6063. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006063.
Measurement of food intake in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is often necessary for studies of behaviour, nutrition and drug administration. There is no reliable and agreed method for measuring food intake of flies in undisturbed, steady state, and normal culture conditions. We report such a method, based on measurement of feeding frequency by proboscis-extension, validated by short-term measurements of food dye intake. We used the method to demonstrate that (a) female flies feed more frequently than males, (b) flies feed more often when housed in larger groups and (c) fly feeding varies at different times of the day. We also show that alterations in food intake are not induced by dietary restriction or by a null mutation of the fly insulin receptor substrate chico. In contrast, mutation of takeout increases food intake by increasing feeding frequency while mutation of ovo(D) increases food intake by increasing the volume of food consumed per proboscis-extension. This approach provides a practical and reliable method for quantification of food intake in Drosophila under normal, undisturbed culture conditions.
在果蝇黑腹果蝇中测量食物摄入量对于行为、营养和药物给药研究通常是必要的。在不受干扰、稳定状态和正常培养条件下，没有可靠且公认的测量果蝇食物摄入量的方法。我们报告了一种基于通过喙伸展测量进食频率的方法，该方法通过食物染料摄入量的短期测量得到验证。我们使用该方法证明：（a）雌性果蝇比雄性果蝇进食更频繁；（b）果蝇群居时进食更频繁；（c）果蝇在一天中的不同时间进食情况不同。我们还表明，食物摄入量的改变不是由饮食限制或果蝇胰岛素受体底物chico的无效突变引起的。相比之下，外卖蛋白的突变通过增加进食频率来增加食物摄入量，而ovo（D）的突变通过增加每次喙伸展消耗的食物量来增加食物摄入量。这种方法为在正常、不受干扰的培养条件下定量果蝇的食物摄入量提供了一种实用且可靠的方法。
