Journal Article

Quantifying Drosophila food intake: comparative analysis of current methodology

Amador, Ariadna, Phillips, Angela M, Hoxha, Sany, Ja, William W, Lizotte, Keith J, Deshpande, Sonali A, Carvalho, Gil B

2014

Overview

This Analysis compares four commonly used assays to measure food intake in flies and identifies radioisotope-labeling and the capillary feeder (CAFE) as the most reproducible and sensitive. Food intake is a fundamental parameter in animal studies. Despite the prevalent use of Drosophila in laboratory research, precise measurements of food intake remain challenging in this model organism. Here, we compare several common Drosophila feeding assays: the capillary feeder (CAFE), food labeling with a radioactive tracer or colorimetric dye and observations of proboscis extension (PE). We show that the CAFE and radioisotope labeling provide the most consistent results, have the highest sensitivity and can resolve differences in feeding that dye labeling and PE fail to distinguish. We conclude that performing the radiolabeling and CAFE assays in parallel is currently the best approach for quantifying Drosophila food intake. Understanding the strengths and limitations of methods for measuring food intake will greatly advance Drosophila studies of nutrition, behavior and disease.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group US,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 631/1647/2198 / 631/208/1515 / 631/378/1488 / 64/24 / analysis / Animals / Behavior, Animal / Bioinformatics / Biological Microscopy / Biological Techniques / Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology / Colorimetry / Comparative analysis / Diet / Drosophila / Drosophila melanogaster - physiology / Eating / Feeding Behavior / Female / Food / Food habits / Food labeling / Foraging behavior / Genetics, Behavioral - methods / Insects / Life Sciences / Male / Physiological aspects / Physiological research / Proteomics / Radioactive Tracers / Radioisotopes / Reproducibility of Results / Research Design / Research methodology / Sex Factors