Published December 15, 2023 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Protocol for screening facultative parthenogenesis in Drosophila

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology

Abstract

Most species of sexually reproducing Drosophila are capable of some degree of facultative parthenogenesis, which involves the initiation of development in an unfertilized egg. Here, we present an optimized protocol to screen facultative parthenogenesis in Drosophila. We describe steps for the collection and maintenance of virgin flies. We then detail offspring screening for the analysis of parthenogenesis. This protocol can be applied to different Drosophila strains and can be adapted for the analysis of parthenogenesis in other animals.

For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Sperling et al.1

Copyright and License

© 2023 The Author(s) Under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 DEED.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust (Project Grant RPG-2018-229) and the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (RG89305) for their support of D.M.G. and A.L.S. to undertake this work. We would like to thank the Cambridge Fly Facility who provided the food and the recipe used in this protocol.

Contributions

A.L.S. researched and developed the protocol for the parthenogenesis screen and A.L.S. and D.M.G. both secured the funding for this project.

Data Availability

This study did not generate/analyze datasets/code.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Funding

Leverhulme Trust
RPG-2018-229
Wellcome Trust
RG89305

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering (BBE)