Loss of Hemolectin reduces the survival of Drosophila larvae after wounding

Coagulation and survival in Drosophila melanogaster fondue mutants

“…We designed an assay to test larvae for their ability to stop bleeding, and differences were found between the feeding and wandering stages of third instar larvae that correlated with differences in the number of circulating hemocytes at the different stages (Chang et al, 2012). Using this assay, fewer hmlf03374 larvae survived when wounded in the feeding stage of the third larval instar (Chang et al, 2012). Still, most wounded hmlf03374 larvae survived.…”

“…This suggested that while fon MB11923 had a greater effect than RNAi knockdown, the larvae still retain some residual fon coagulation function. In addition, we compared wildtype larvae in the feeding and wandering stages and demonstrated that like wound survival (Chang et al, 2012), hemolymph from different stage larvae showed different strand lengths. Significant differences were found between each group (P < 0.05 by t test) indicated by asterisks, while the difference between fon MB11923 and fon MB11923 /Df was highly significant (P < 0.01) as indicated by double asterisks.…”

“…Significantly longer strands could be drawn from the hemolymph of wild type feeding stage larvae than from the hemolymph of wandering stage larvae. The latter have more hemocytes in circulation (Chang et al, 2012), and hence are able to form a denser, more brittle clot, leading to strands breaking earlier, at shorter lengths in the spaghetti assay.…”

“…Feeding stage larvae were isolated using blue food as described in (Chang et al, 2012). Briefly, larvae were kept on medium with 0.5% bromophenol blue, and third instar feeding stage larvae were identified by their visibly blue guts.…”

“…The wounding assay was described in (Chang et al, 2012). Briefly, feeding stage larvae were isolated from blue food vials, washed in deionized water, and gently dried with tissue.…”