Medical Research Council of UK is reporting that an innovative new imaging modality called optical projection tomography (OPT), when applied to Drosophila melanogaster, may reveal mechanisms responsible for a host of human neurodegenerative disorders, from Parkinson’s disease to Alzheimer’s dementia.
OPT could help researchers to look at how the fly brain changes in response to alterations in the normal activity of a specific gene without the risk of damaging tissue through dissection.
In a paper published in PLoS ONE, the team describes how they have already used the technique to image individual cavities within the brain of an ageing fly and see the brain deteriorate.
MRC PhD student Leeanne McGurk who captured many of the OPT images explained why the technique works:
“The dark colour of the fly exoskeleton prevents us from seeing inside it using a standard light microscope. In the past this has meant scientists have had to tease apart fruit fly tissues by hand — a laborious process. Now, we have got over the problem by bleaching the fly exoskeleton. When the fruit fly becomes colourless it is possible to use imaging techniques not only to view its internal organs but to generate 2D and 3D images of the entire fly. ”
Using OPT images in this way will allow scientists to visualise where and how the products of selected genes are present in the fly. These patterns of gene expression, as they are known, will help to identify genes that control parts of the central nervous system and so provide detailed information about the human brain.
Bleaching of the exoskeleton to clear away the colour also allows images to be generated using other microscopic techniques that depend on penetration of light.
To learn more about the OPT, head on to optical projection tomography (OPT) page over at the Edinburgh Mouse Atlas Project …
The paper: Three-Dimensional Imaging of Drosophila melanogaster …
Press release: 3D fruit fly images to benefit brain research …
More from MIT Tech Review: Inside the Brains of Fruit Flies …