Chiu Joanna C, Low Kwang Huei, Pike Douglas H, Yildirim Evrim, Edery Isaac
Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Rutgers University, USA.
J Vis Exp. 2010 Sep 28(43):2157. doi: 10.3791/2157.
Most life forms exhibit daily rhythms in cellular, physiological and behavioral phenomena that are driven by endogenous circadian (≡24 hr) pacemakers or clocks. Malfunctions in the human circadian system are associated with numerous diseases or disorders. Much progress towards our understanding of the mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms has emerged from genetic screens whereby an easily measured behavioral rhythm is used as a read-out of clock function. Studies using Drosophila have made seminal contributions to our understanding of the cellular and biochemical bases underlying circadian rhythms. The standard circadian behavioral read-out measured in Drosophila is locomotor activity. In general, the monitoring system involves specially designed devices that can measure the locomotor movement of Drosophila. These devices are housed in environmentally controlled incubators located in a darkroom and are based on using the interruption of a beam of infrared light to record the locomotor activity of individual flies contained inside small tubes. When measured over many days, Drosophila exhibit daily cycles of activity and inactivity, a behavioral rhythm that is governed by the animal's endogenous circadian system. The overall procedure has been simplified with the advent of commercially available locomotor activity monitoring devices and the development of software programs for data analysis. We use the system from Trikinetics Inc., which is the procedure described here and is currently the most popular system used worldwide. More recently, the same monitoring devices have been used to study sleep behavior in Drosophila. Because the daily wake-sleep cycles of many flies can be measured simultaneously and only 1 to 2 weeks worth of continuous locomotor activity data is usually sufficient, this system is ideal for large-scale screens to identify Drosophila manifesting altered circadian or sleep properties.
大多数生命形式在细胞、生理和行为现象中表现出每日节律，这些节律由内源性昼夜节律（约24小时）起搏器或时钟驱动。人类昼夜节律系统的功能紊乱与许多疾病或失调有关。通过基因筛选，我们在理解昼夜节律背后的机制方面取得了很大进展，在基因筛选中，一种易于测量的行为节律被用作时钟功能的读数。使用果蝇进行的研究为我们理解昼夜节律背后的细胞和生化基础做出了开创性贡献。在果蝇中测量的标准昼夜行为读数是运动活动。一般来说，监测系统包括专门设计的设备，这些设备可以测量果蝇的运动。这些设备放置在位于暗室的环境控制培养箱中，基于利用红外光束的中断来记录小管内单个果蝇的运动活动。当在许多天内进行测量时，果蝇表现出活动和不活动的每日周期，这种行为节律由动物的内源性昼夜节律系统控制。随着市售运动活动监测设备的出现和用于数据分析的软件程序的开发，整个过程得到了简化。我们使用Trikinetics公司的系统，这里描述的就是该程序，它是目前全球使用最广泛的系统。最近，同样的监测设备已被用于研究果蝇的睡眠行为。由于许多果蝇的每日醒睡周期可以同时测量，而且通常只需1至2周的连续运动活动数据就足够了，因此该系统非常适合大规模筛选，以识别昼夜节律或睡眠特性发生改变的果蝇。
