Effects of Oral Morphine on the Larvae, Pupae and Imago Development in Drosophila Melanogaster

Objective: Previous studies, focusing on the effects of abused drugs, have used miceor rats as the main animal models; the present study tries to introduce a simple animalmodel. For this propose, we investigated the effects of oral morphine consumption byparents on the development of larvae, pupae and imago in Drosophila Melanogaster (D.Melanogaster).Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, twenty male and 20 female D. Melanogasterpupae were housed in test tubes with banana (5 pupae /tube). Male and femalegroups each were divided into three experimental group and one control group, whichwere maintained at 25°C. Morphine (0.2, 0.02, 0.002 mg/ml) was added into the test tubesof the experimental groups. The control group maintained at morphine-free test tube. Themale and female groups with the same treatment were coupled and then female fertilization,egg deposit, larval, pupae and imago stages were studied macro and microscopically.The SPSS software (version 9.01) was used for statistical evaluations.Results: In the experimental groups, in the larvae stage, both increase and decrease oflength and surface area in the pupae stage were observed. The number of larvae pupae,and imago was reduced in the experimental groups.Conclusion: The study showed that oral morphine consumption by parents may affect thedevelopment of larvae, pupation and imago stages in D. Melanogaster. The results alsoshowed that D. Melanogaster may be a reliable anima