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A holidic medium for Drosophila melanogaster

Nature Methods volume 11, pages 100–105 (2014)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 29 October 2015

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 28 August 2014

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Abstract

A critical requirement for research using model organisms is a well-defined and consistent diet. There is currently no complete chemically defined (holidic) diet available for Drosophila melanogaster. We describe a holidic medium that is equal in performance to an oligidic diet optimized for adult fecundity and lifespan. This holidic diet supports development over multiple generations but at a reduced rate. Over 7 years of experiments, the holidic diet yielded more consistent experimental outcomes than did oligidic food for egg laying by females. Nutrients and drugs were more available to flies in holidic medium and, similar to dietary restriction on oligidic food, amino acid dilution increased fly lifespan. We used this holidic medium to investigate amino acid–specific effects on food-choice behavior and report that folic acid from the microbiota is sufficient for Drosophila development.

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Figure 1: A holidic diet for adult Drosophila.
Figure 2: Nutrient-specific effects on Drosophila fitness traits.
Figure 3: Holidic diet as a tool to study behavior.
Figure 4: Drug bioavailability is increased on holidic medium.
Figure 5: Development on holidic media.

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Change history

  • 08 August 2014

    In the version of this article initially published, funding information for L.P. was omitted. The author acknowledges funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (0315893B/Sybacol (Systems Biology of Ageing Cologne)). The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

  • 19 October 2014

    In the version of this article initially published, only one corresponding author was listed (M.D.W.P.). L.P. has been added as a corresponding author for this article. The relevant contact information is partridge@age.mpg.de. This information has been added to the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the following funding: the Royal Society (UF100158), and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK (BB/I011544/1) (M.D.W.P.); Foundation for Science and Technology (postdoctoral fellowship SFRH/BPD/78947/2011) and European Molecular Biology Organization (long-term postdoctoral fellowship ALTF 1602-2011) (R.L.-G.); Alzheimer's Research, UK (F.K.); Champalimaud Foundation, the Bial foundation and the Foundation for Science and Technology (grant PTDC/BIA-BCM/118684/2010) (C.R.); the Wellcome Trust UK (098565/Z/12/Z), Max Planck Society and the European Research Council under the European Union′s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), European Research Council grant agreement 268739 and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (0315893B/Sybacol (Systems Biology of Ageing Cologne)) (L.P.). For this work we used the Drosophila Aging Core of the Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Biology of Aging, funded by the US National Institute of Aging (P30-AG-013283) (S.D.P.).

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Author notes

  1. Mingyao Yang

    Present address: Present address: Institute of Animal Genetics and Breeding, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics, Institute of Healthy Ageing, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK

    Matthew D W Piper, Mingyao Yang, Xiaoli He, Matthew P Hoddinott, Christine Niemeyer, Fiona Kerr & Linda Partridge

  2. Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, King's College London, London, UK

    Eric Blanc

  3. Behavior and Metabolism Laboratory, Champalimaud Neuroscience Program, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ricardo Leitão-Gonçalves & Carlos Ribeiro

  4. Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Nancy J Linford & Scott D Pletcher

  5. Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Köln, Germany

    Matthew P Hoddinott, Corinna Hopfen, George A Soultoukis & Linda Partridge

  6. Geriatrics Center and Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Scott D Pletcher

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Contributions

M.D.W.P. and L.P. conceived and developed the project, and wrote the manuscript. M.D.W.P., R.L.-G., M.Y., X.H., N.J.L., M.P.H., C.H., G.A.S., C.N. and F.K. performed experiments. All authors contributed to data analysis and interpretation.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Matthew D W Piper or Linda Partridge.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Piper, M., Blanc, E., Leitão-Gonçalves, R. et al. A holidic medium for Drosophila melanogaster. Nat Methods 11, 100–105 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2731

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