Results

Control Data Collection

While a range of locomotor assay trials for several mutations of Drosophila melanogaster were conducted, the control was not examined thoroughly enough due to time constraints and other limitations. The locomotor assays trials during this research were initially tested with OR wild-type flies in sample of sizes of 50. These trials did not persist past the first week or two of life and, thus, were unable to be used as a sufficient source of control data. The preliminary data taken during the first week of life is, however, consistent with that of the mutated samples. A larger amount of control data will be part of the next steps for this research. 

To compensate for this, data was pulled from the following 2005 research paper:

Julia Warner Gargano, Ian Martin, Poonam Bhandari, Michael S. Grotewiel,

Rapid iterative negative geotaxis (RING): a new method for assessing age-related locomotor decline in Drosophila,

Experimental Gerontology, Volume 40, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 386-395, ISSN 0531-5565,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2005.02.005.

This paper similarly examined age-related decline in locomotor function in fruit flies. In this research, flies were tapped to the bottom of the container and "negative geotaxis" or the distance in which flies ascended the container was used to measure locomotor function as the flies aged. A picture of the containers was captured every 1 second after the first second until 4 seconds had passed. This method was able to capture the flies' positions and the distance traveled.

Control Data Analysis

Though this study focused on the distance traveled rather than the amount of flies who had crossed a certain distance, the data was able to be used to determine the percent decline in generalized motor function as aging occurred. For the OR flies, motor function decreased by roughly 40% by 4 weeks of life. 

This is dissimilar to the experimental groups used: CASK, SHRB, VHA100. For example, the SHRB test flies, on average, declined about 60% in motor function by 4 weeks of life. 

CASK Results



The first graph shows the data of individual vials by their WingTap IDs. The dotted lines indicating those paired with GR-Control; the solid line corresponds to GR-80.


The second graph is after taking data from each vial and putting it together into one sample, according to different genotypes.


There doesn't seem to be any drawable conclusions from this. However, it's interesting to point out how CASK X GR-Control seemed to increase activity near the later weeks. 



In the two graphs, missing data points for certain weeks indicate that there was no data collected for that week. Reasons for this are discussed in the conclusion.

Vha100 Results

The graph on the left depicts the results of the Vha100 GR-Control vials. There seems to be a clear trend of decreasing ability as the flies aged. However, the score of zero at week 5 for both vials, in addition to the lack of data in weeks 3 and 4, the trend may seem more significant than it would have if the data points were not missing.

The ne67i vial shows a clear decreasing trend throughout the weeks. It is also the only vial without any weeks where data was not collected. 

The birw5 vial shows that there was not much of a change between weeks 1 through 5, and then a slight decrease afterward. 

The k0wyw vial shows a similar trend to ne67i for the first 4 weeks, and then follows a similar trend to birw5 for the last 2 weeks.

Shrb Results

In the graph to the right, black data points represent missing data due to inaccessibility to the lab. These data points occurred during the scheduled Spring Break for the University of Arizona. 

This data shows that motor function of the flies steadily decreases as aging increases. The upticks in motor activity by percentage in the final weeks may be attributed to the possible source of error noted above (large outliers due to decreased sample size). 

Compared to the control results, the Shrb-Control group experienced greater decrease in motor function (at roughly 60% by 4 weeks of life, as compared to 40% experienced in the control). 

Graph depicting the percentage of flies who crossed the 190 mL mark of a 250 mL graduated cylinder. Percentage-based data was used since the amount of flies in each locomotor assay trial varies by both the vial and the week as breeding rates differ between each vial, and it is not uncommon for a number of flies to die between each trial or escape during collection of transfer. This may be a source of error in the data since sample size often decreases as weeks go on, leaving room for more outliers as the number of flies decrease over time.