Figure 4.—

Reduced life span and progressive bang-induced paralysis in levy mutants. (A) Percentage of surviving adults kept at 29° after eclosion. levy¹ flies (n = 550) died at a median age of 8 days at 29° compared to wild-type (CS) flies (n = 669), which lived to a median age of 28 days. Life span of levy transformants (n = 955) was similar to that of Canton-S flies, while transformant controls (n = 682) died about the same time as levy¹ mutants. (B) Time for recovery after testing for bang-induced paralysis for 2-, 10-, and 20-day-old (after eclosion) adults kept at 21°. At this temperature, the median life span was 100 days for wild-type flies (CS), 51 days for levy¹ mutants, 93 days for transformants, and 55 days for transformant controls. Two-day-old levy¹ mutants did not exhibit bang-induced paralytic behavior. Only a fraction of 10-day-old levy¹ mutants exhibited bang-induced paralysis, all of which recovered in <2 min. In 20-day-old levy¹ mutants, all flies paralyzed in response to bang stimulus and these took longer to recover from paralysis than their younger siblings. Numbers of 2-, 10-, and 20-day-old levy flies tested were 56, 66, and 71, respectively. Numbers of 2-, 10-, and 20-day-old transformant control flies tested were 69, 64, and 68, respectively.