1Department of Neurology, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 202150, China
2Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201210, China
3Department of Neurology, Xinhua Hospital Chongming Branch Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 202150, China
4Institute of Neuroscience, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China

Abstract 

Stroke is a leading cause of death worldwide. Up to one thousand potential drugs or interventions have been developed to treat stroke, out of which ~160 have gone on to clinical trials. However, none of them has been successful. New insights into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of ischemia-induced injury are needed for discovering new therapeutic targets. Recently, Drosophila has been used to uncover new hypoxia-related genes. In this study, we describe an efficient and reliable assay with a sophisticated apparatus for studying the effects of oxygen deprivation on flies. Using this assay, wild-type flies were exposed to an anoxic environment for varying lengths of time, then the cumulative death rate and mobility recovery were systematically analyzed. We found that anoxia for over one hour caused lethality. The cumulative death rate on day 5 after anoxia was linearly and positively correlated with the duration of anoxia, and reached 50% when the duration was 2.5 h–3 h. We also found that the mobility recovery in normoxia was slow, as the climbing ability remained largely unchanged 4 h–6 h after 2.5-h of anoxia. We suggest that 2.5 h–3 h of anoxia and 4 h–6 h of recovery before mobility analysis are appropriate for future use of the anoxia assay.

Keywords

Hypoxia, Anoxia, Drosophila, Mortality, Locomotor activity

[SpringerLink]