The sensitivity of Drosophila larvae to continuous-wave ultrasound

The threshold for killing of freshly hatched Drosophila larvae exposed to continuous-wave (CW) ultrasound shows a minimum at approximately 0.3 MHz. This suggests that the stiffness of the material surrounding the gas bodies in the organism is comparable to water. From this, it is apparent that the gas bodies in three-day-old larvae that we have used in earlier studies are far larger than resonance size at the frequencies (1-5 MHz) used. Yet, these larvae were killed by short exposures to low-temporal-average-intensity pulsed ultrasound with peak intensities of the order of 10 W/cm2. Hence, it appears that "large" bubbles cannot be ignored in considerations of the biological effects of pulsed ultrasound and lithotripsy.