Fly poo never looked so beautiful…
Snapshots of different portions of the fly's digestive tract and its nerve cells, taken using a confocal microscope
What can fruit fly faeces tell us about human metabolism? Quite a bit actually.
Dr Irene Miguel-Aliaga from the University of Cambridge and colleagues are using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to investigate the function of these intestinal neurons.Their research has thus far provided clues as to why pregnant women suffer from bloating and constipation, and why there is a link between a low-calorie diet and lifespan.
You can read the full story on the Wellcome Trust website, but one thing we couldn’t highlight there was just how beautiful some of their images are. As Dr Miguel-Aliaga says: “flies’ faecal deposits… are actually rather pretty and don’t smell bad”. Still, it’s surprising to find such beauty deep in so much… er…
Full gallery follows after the jump.
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- The fly with its droppings
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- Snapshots of different portions of the fly’s digestive tract and its nerve cells, taken using a confocal microscope
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- Insulin-producing nerve cells (labelled with green fluorescent protein) are found in the fly brain (in blue), but they send out long axons that terminate on the gut (red staining). This confocal image was taken by Paola Cognigni.
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- Confocal snapshot of the junction between two portions of the Drosophila digestive tract: the midgut and the hindgut. Cell nuclei are labelled in blue, membranes in green and muscles in red. This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga.
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- This confocal image shows the posterior portion of the fly’s digestive tract: the hindgut. The intestinal cells are labelled in green and red, and the hindgut nerve cells are stained in blue. This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga.
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- Posterior-most portion of the Drosophila digestive tract (the fly’s rectum). An actin staining highlights the muscles (red). There is abundant innervation (green fibres) of this portion of the digestive tract, and some of these nerve cells secrete the insulin-like peptide Ilp7 (labelled in blue). This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga using a confocal microscope.
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- Snapshot of a few nerve cells (in red) innervating the anterior portion of the fly’s digestive tract, revealed by an actin staining of the enteric muscles (in blue). This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga using a confocal microscope.
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- Snapshot of a few nerve cells (in red) innervating the anterior portion of the fly’s digestive tract, revealed by an actin staining of the enteric muscles (in white). This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga using a confocal microscope.
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- Close-up of a few nerve cells innervating the anterior portion of the fly’s digestive tract, revealed by an actin staining of the enteric muscles (in blue). The nuclei of these nerve cells are displayed in red, and their axons are shown in green. This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga using a confocal microscope.
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- High-magnification image of the posterior portion of the fly’s larval digestive tract: the hindgut . An actin staining decorates the hindgut muscles (blue). Two different kinds of nerve cells are apparent: some secrete the insulin-like peptide Ilp7 (left, in red) and some are motor neurons (right, labelled with a green fluorescent protein). This image was taken by Irene Miguel-Aliaga using a confocal microscope.
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- This image, taken by Paola Cognigni using a confocal microscope, shows the posterior portion of the digestive tract of a fly’s embryo following dissection and imunostaining. The enteric muscles are revealed by an actin staining (green), whereas the intestinal cells are labelled in blue and red.
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