Dissection and staining of Drosophila larval ovaries

Many organs depend on stem cells for their development during embryogenesis and for maintenance or repair during adult life. Understanding how stem cells form, and how they interact with their environment is therefore crucial for understanding development, homeostasis and disease. The ovary of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has served as an influential model for the interaction of germ line stem cells (GSCs) with their somatic support cells (niche) (1, 2). The known location of the niche and the GSCs, coupled to the ability to genetically manipulate them, has allowed researchers to elucidate a variety of interactions between stem cells and their niches (3-12). Despite the wealth of information about mechanisms controlling GSC maintenance and differentiation, relatively little is known about how GSCs and their somatic niches form during development. About 18 somatic niches, whose cellular components include terminal filament and cap cells (Figure 1), form during the third larval instar (13-17). GSCs originate from primordial germ cells (PGCs). PGCs proliferate at early larval stages, but following the formation of the niche a subgroup of PGCs becomes GSCs (7, 16, 18, 19). Together, the somatic niche cells and the GSCs make a functional unit that produces eggs throughout the lifetime of the organism. Many questions regarding the formation of the GSC unit remain unanswered. Processes such as coordination between precursor cells for niches and stem cell precursors, or the generation of asymmetry within PGCs as they become GSCs, can best be studied in the larva. However, a methodical study of larval ovary development is physically challenging. First, larval ovaries are small. Even at late larval stages they are only 100μm across. In addition, the ovaries are transparent and are embedded in a white fat body. Here we describe a step-by-step protocol for isolating ovaries from late third instar (LL3) Drosophila larvae, followed by staining with fluorescent antibodies. We offer some technical solutions to problems such as locating the ovaries, staining and washing tissues that do not sink, and making sure that antibodies penetrate into the tissue. This protocol can be applied to earlier larval stages and to larval testes as well.