Imaging and Analysis of Tissue Orientation and Growth Dynamics in the Developing Drosophila Epithelia During Pupal Stages

Summary

This protocol is designed for the imaging and analysis of the dynamics of cell orientation and tissue growth in the Drosophila abdominal epithelia as the fruit fly undergoes metamorphosis. The methodology described here can be applied to the study of different developmental stages, tissues, and subcellular structures in Drosophila or other model organisms.

Abstract

Within multicellular organisms, mature tissues and organs display high degrees of order in the spatial arrangements of their constituent cells. A remarkable example is given by sensory epithelia, where cells of the same or distinct identities are brought together via cell-cell adhesion showing highly organized planar patterns. Cells align to one another in the same direction and display equivalent polarity over large distances. This organization of the mature epithelia is established over the course of morphogenesis. To understand how the planar arrangement of the mature epithelia is achieved, it is crucial to track cell orientation and growth dynamics with high spatiotemporal fidelity during development in vivo. Robust analytical tools are also essential to identify and characterize local-to-global transitions. The Drosophila pupa is an ideal system to evaluate oriented cell shape changes underlying epithelial morphogenesis. The pupal developing epithelium constitutes the external surface of the immobile body, allowing long-term imaging of intact animals. The protocol described here is designed to image and analyze cell behaviors at both global and local levels in the pupal abdominal epidermis as it grows. The methodology described can be easily adapted to the imaging of cell behaviors at other developmental stages, tissues, subcellular structures, or model organisms.

Introduction

To achieve their roles, epithelial tissues fully rely on the spatial organization of their cellular components. In most epithelia, cells are not only packed against each other to create a precise cobblestone layer but they orient themselves relative to the body axes.

The functional importance of precise tissue organization is obvious in sensory epithelia, such as the vertebrate inner ear and retina. In the first case, hair and supporting cells align in a specific axial direction to efficiently sense mechanical inputs such as sound and motion^1,2. Similarly, photoreceptor cell spatial....

Protocol

NOTE: This protocol is divided into five steps: (1) staging the pupae, (2) preparing the pupae for imaging, (3) live imaging of the growing abdominal epithelia, (4) generation of genetic mosaics, (5) data processing and analysis (including sections describing how to analyze cell orientation dynamics from cell junction outlines and growth dynamics from cell clones).

1. Staging of Drosophila pupae before imaging

1. Culture flies of the appropriate genotype on standard medium in.......

Discussion

Long-range order is an essential characteristic of most functional physiological units. During morphogenesis, order is achieved through the integration of complex instructions implemented with high temporal and spatial precision. Multiple and multilevel constrains are integrated into stereotyped tissue arrangements.

Polarity and directionality are critical to ordered spatial arrangement during development. Polarity implies symmetry breaking during development. The achievement of asymmetry is n.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Analysis Software	-	ImageJ	Analyzing data
Drosophila	Atpa::GFP	-	Strains employed for data collection
Drosophila	hsflp1.22;FRT40A/FRT40A Ubi.RFP.nls	-	Strains employed for data collection
Dumont 5 Forceps	FST	11251-20	1.5 mm diameter for dissection
Glass Bottom Plates	Mat Tek	P35G-0.170-14-C	Mounting pupae for data collection
Halocarbon Oil 27	Sigma-Aldrich	9002-83-9	mounting pupae
Inverted Confocal microscope	Zeiss	LSM700	Data collection
Stereomicroscope	Leica	DFC365FX	Visualization of the pupae during dissection