Lively Larva

What am I looking at?

This is a time-lapse video of a fruit fly embryo, with the nuclei of all its cells labeled in red and the cells of its nervous system labeled in green. The jerky movements you can start to see toward the end of the video are a result of the nascent larva developing its musculature and trying to move. The front of the larva – which will become the head of the fly – is at the bottom in this view.

Biology in the background

Fruit flies have a high reproduction rate and a very short gestation period. They are also low-maintenance, simple to breed, and easy to maintain. And they share a lot of genes with humans, notably those responsible for establishing the organism’s body plan. All of these characteristics make them an excellent model for studying human diseases and genetic processes.

This video highlights the ability of scientists to watch entire bodily systems – the nervous system in this case – develop within a fly embryo. While it may seem as if studying the nervous system in fruit flies wouldn’t have much relevance to humans, there are a surprising number of similarities between the two organisms. In fact, the fruit fly genome and the human genome are about 60% identical.

That means researchers can make predictions about neural mechanisms we share with fruit flies by studying the development of their nervous system. Of course, findings made in model organisms like fruit flies can’t be applied directly to humans because of the many differences between the two biological systems. But we did share a common ancestor with fruit flies about 600 million years ago, according to some estimates, so they provide a good foundation for subsequent research in more complex organisms.

A fruit fly embryo is about half a millimeter long, or roughly seven times larger than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was created using Simultaneous Multi-View (SiMView) light-sheet microscopy, a technology that allows fast, high-resolution microscopic imaging and is gentle enough for prolonged recording of living specimens.