Laser Ablation to Probe the Epithelial Mechanics in Drosophila

Laser ablation is nowadays a widespread technique to probe tissue mechanics during development. Here we describe the setup of one such ablation system and ablation experiments performed on the embryo and pupa of Drosophila. We describe in detail the process of sample preparation, how to disrupt single-cell junctions and perform linear or circular cuts at the tissue scale, and how to analyze the data to determine relevant mechanical parameters.