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Assaying Circadian Locomotor Activity Rhythm in Drosophila

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Circadian Clocks

Part of the book series: Neuromethods ((NM,volume 186))

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster has been an instrumental animal model for defining key properties of circadian rhythms and for investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating circadian timekeeping. Over the past few decades, locomotor activity rhythm has served as a standard phenotypic readout that reflects the functionality of the endogenous circadian clock. Automated, high-throughput data recording from a large number of individuals ensures the robustness and reproducibility of this assay. When combined with versatile genetic tools of the fly model, locomotor activity assay has been used repeatedly in large mutant screens and mechanistic studies to identify and characterize key molecular components of the animal circadian clock. In this chapter, we detail the workflow for conducting circadian locomotor activity assay with the most commonly used Drosophila Activity Monitoring System (DAMS). We also describe the utility of selected software to analyze and visualize locomotor activity data.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ben L. Kunimoto for technical support. Chronobiology research in the Chiu Lab is supported by the National Institutes of Health grant R01 DK124068 to JCC. YDC is supported by the Sean & Anne Duffey and Hugh & Geraldine Dingle Research Fellowship.

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Author notes

  1. Yao D. Cai and Sergio I. Hidalgo Sotelo contributed equally with all other contributors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology and Nematology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Yao D. Cai, Sergio I. Hidalgo Sotelo, Kiya C. Jackson & Joanna C. Chiu

Authors
  1. Yao D. Cai
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  2. Sergio I. Hidalgo Sotelo
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  3. Kiya C. Jackson
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  4. Joanna C. Chiu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joanna C. Chiu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

    Tsuyoshi Hirota

  2. Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

    Megumi Hatori

  3. Regulatory Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Satchidananda Panda

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© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

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Cai, Y.D., Hidalgo Sotelo, S.I., Jackson, K.C., Chiu, J.C. (2022). Assaying Circadian Locomotor Activity Rhythm in Drosophila. In: Hirota, T., Hatori, M., Panda, S. (eds) Circadian Clocks. Neuromethods, vol 186. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2577-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2577-4_3

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2576-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-2577-4

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