1. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

Long-term live imaging of the Drosophila adult midgut reveals real-time dynamics of division, differentiation, and loss

  1. Judy Lisette Martin  Is a corresponding author
  2. Erin Nicole Sanders
  3. Paola Moreno-Roman
  4. Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama
  5. Shruthi Balachandra
  6. XinXin Du
  7. Lucy Erin O'Brien  Is a corresponding author
  1. Stanford University School of Medicine, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36248
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Cite this article
  1. Judy Lisette Martin
  2. Erin Nicole Sanders
  3. Paola Moreno-Roman
  4. Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama
  5. Shruthi Balachandra
  6. XinXin Du
  7. Lucy Erin O'Brien
(2018)
Long-term live imaging of the Drosophila adult midgut reveals real-time dynamics of division, differentiation, and loss
eLife 7:e36248.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36248
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Abstract

Organ renewal is governed by the dynamics of cell division, differentiation, and loss. To study these dynamics in real time, we present a platform for extended live imaging of the adult Drosophila midgut, a premier genetic model for stem cell-based organs. A window cut into a living animal allows the midgut to be imaged while intact and physiologically functioning. This approach prolongs imaging sessions to 12-16 hours and yields movies that document cell and tissue dynamics at vivid spatiotemporal resolution. Applying a pipeline for movie processing and analysis, we uncover new, intriguing cell behaviors: that mitotic stem cells dynamically re-orient, that daughter cells use slow kinetics of Notch activation to reach a fate-specifying threshold, and that enterocytes extrude via ratcheted constriction of a junctional ring. By enabling real-time study of midgut phenomena that were previously inaccessible, our platform opens a new realm for dynamic understanding of adult organ renewal.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files for figures have also been uploaded to Dryad (https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1v1g1b0).

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Judy Lisette Martin

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    jlmart@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Erin Nicole Sanders

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Paola Moreno-Roman

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Shruthi Balachandra

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. XinXin Du

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  7. Lucy Erin O'Brien

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    lucye@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7660-2524

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R01GM116000-01A1)

  • Judy Lisette Martin
  • Erin Nicole Sanders
  • Paola Moreno-Roman
  • Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama
  • Shruthi Balachandra
  • XinXin Du
  • Lucy Erin O'Brien

National Institutes of Health (1F31GM123736-01)

  • Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama

National Institutes of Health (Stanford Discovery Fund Innovation Program)

  • Lucy Erin O'Brien

Stanford University (Center for Biomedical Imaging at Stanford Seed Grant)

  • Judy Lisette Martin
  • Lucy Erin O'Brien

National Science Foundation (GRFP DGE-1656518)

  • Erin Nicole Sanders

National Institutes of Health (2T32GM00779038)

  • Erin Nicole Sanders
  • Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama

William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation (Stanford Bio X Bowes Graduate Fellowship)

  • Paola Moreno-Roman

Stanford University (Stanford DARE (Diversifying Academia Recruiting Excellence) Fellowship)

  • Paola Moreno-Roman

National Institutes of Health (NRSA 1F32GM115065)

  • XinXin Du

Stanford University (Stanford Dean's Postdoctoral Fellowship)

  • XinXin Du

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Allan C Spradling, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Carnegie Institution for Science, United States

Version history

  1. Received: February 27, 2018
  2. Accepted: November 12, 2018
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: November 14, 2018 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: December 3, 2018 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2018, Martin et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Judy Lisette Martin
  2. Erin Nicole Sanders
  3. Paola Moreno-Roman
  4. Leslie Ann Jaramillo Koyama
  5. Shruthi Balachandra
  6. XinXin Du
  7. Lucy Erin O'Brien
(2018)
Long-term live imaging of the Drosophila adult midgut reveals real-time dynamics of division, differentiation, and loss
eLife 7:e36248.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36248

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.36248

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