A Burrowing/Tunneling Assay for Detection of Hypoxia in Drosophila melanogaster Larvae.

Oxygen deprivation in animals can result from exposure to low atmospheric oxygen levels or from internal tissue damage that interferes with oxygen distribution. It is also possible that aberrant behavior of oxygen-sensing neurons could induce hypoxia-like behavior in the presence of normal oxygen levels. In D.

Failure to Burrow and Tunnel Reveals Roles for jim lovell in the Growth and Endoreplication of the Drosophila Larval Tracheae.

The Drosophila protein Jim Lovell (Lov) is a putative transcription factor of the BTB/POZ (Bric- a-Brac/Tramtrack/Broad/ Pox virus and Zinc finger) domain class that is expressed in many elements of the developing larval nervous system. It has roles in innate behaviors such as larval locomotion and adult courtship. In performing tissue-specific knockdown with the Gal4-UAS system we identified a new behavioral phenotype for lov: larvae failed to burrow into their food during their growth phase and then failed to tunnel into an agarose substratum during their wandering phase.