Dissection and Immunostaining of Imaginal Discs from Drosophila melanogaster

The overall goal of this procedure is to dissect imaginal discs from drosophila larvae For immunohistochemistry, this is accomplished by first removing the head complex consisting of mouth, hooks, eye, and tenal discs, and brain from the larvae. The second step is to fix the head complex and incubate it with primary and secondary antibodies. Next, the eye and tenal discs are separated from the head complex.

The final step is to mount the imaginal discs in anti bleaching agent on a glass slide. Ultimately fluorescent or LAC Z reporters and antibody staining can reveal the spatial and temporal expression of genes and proteins within the imaginal tissues using fluorescence microscopy. Though this technique can be used to provide insight into gene and protein localization in the enten imaginal disc.