Continuous liquid feeding: New method to study pesticides toxicity in Drosophila melanogaster

Fly fruit Drosophila melanogaster (DM) has been extensively employed as an in vivo model system to study pesticides toxicity. Pesticide administration to the fly traditionally involves feeding in an agar-gelled feed fly's medium (AM). However, AM method has several limitations such as uncertainty regarding the bioavailability and amount of pesticides ingested. And also high manipulation of the treated flies. We developed a new method of exposure the flies to pesticides, called Continuous Liquid Feeding (CLF). This method successfully delivers food to the flies at much higher concentrations than the AM method, and requires little manipulation of flies under treatment.