Papers
A reproducible thermotolerance assay for embryos
Drosophila embryos of defined ages are placed on filter paper
and exposed
to elevated temperatures. If embryos are severely damaged,
they die, fail to hatch, and turn brown over time. Surviving embryos
hatch into larvae which crawl away, but leave their empty egg shells behind. In
this experiment, the embryos on the left were held at room temperature while
the embryos on the right were pretreated at 36°C for 30 minutes to induce
heat-shock proteins. Then both sets of embryos were exposed to a severe
heat challenge. On the left, all embryos died; on the right, the pretreatment
induced thermotolerance and most embryos survived.
This filter assay is easy to perform, can be used for all embryonic stages, and allows large number of embryos to be tested. For example, for the graph shown below, a total of 14,527 eggs were counted.
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