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Study of the interactions among larvae of Drosophila melanogaster: a review of the conditioned medium technique and some effects of the conditioning process

L.M. Botella; J.A. Castro; J.L. Ménsua

Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, C/Dr. Moliner, 50, Burjassot (Valencia), Spain. Send correspondence to J.A.C. The present address of L.M.B. is Institute of Genetics, University of Lund, Solvegatan 29, S-22 362, Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT

The results obtained when using the conditioned media technique (Weisbrot, Genetics 53: 427-435, 1966) may depend on the method employed to obtain the conditioned culture. Traditionally, carcasses from conditioning larvae have been left in the conditioned media. The presence of these carcasses has been shown to supply an additional source of food to conditioned larvae. An alternative method which gives rise to a larva-free conditioned culture may be proposed as more suitable in conditioning studies, because the method permits to study the effect of only the metabolites excreted by larvae on themselves and on other genotypes. Using this method, the contribution of food depletion to the results of self-conditioned media was also evaluated, and it did not appear to be a determining factor in the particular self-conditioning system assayed.

Keywords: larvae; Drosophila melanogaster; conditioning process.

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