Quinnipiac University

Here we describe a simple and widely accessible method to injure segmental nerves in Drosophila larvae to visualize and quantify neurodegeneration of motor neurons at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) of third instar larvae.

The ability of bacteriophage to move DNA between bacterial cells makes them effective tools for the genetic manipulation of their bacterial hosts. Presented here is a methodology for inducing, recovering, and using φBB-1, a bacteriophage of Borrelia burgdorferi, to transduce heterologous DNA between different strains of the Lyme disease spirochete.