Feeling A Little Like An Embarrassed Jelly Fish

Abstract

The focus of our research is to investigate various cellular factors that are involved in the formation of sensitization in the Drosophila melanogaster. As a key aspect of our work, it is necessary to evaluate the morphometry of the primary nociceptor neurons to understand whether the effects seen in behavior are due to changes in the morphometry, or if it is a separate cellular event. These neurons have been genetically manipulated to express red fluorescence protein (RFP), originally discovered in jellyfish. This allows us to view and quantitate this class of neurons using the confocal microscope. As an interesting note, this image was taken from a living fruit fly larva.https://dune.une.edu/confocal_student/1006/thumbnail.jp