Figure 1.

Radiation-induced damage in the gut results in a significant reduction in survival and spontaneous activity of Drosophila. (A) Kaplan Meier survival analysis upon irradiation of 5 day old flies. Non-irradiated control (0 Gy) and irradiated group (100 Gy), respectively. (B) The effect of radiation on spontaneous activity. The graph shows averaged activity per 10 min for control (0 Gy) and irradiated flies (100 Gy). The X-axis represents time (in hours) after the flies were moved to the activity monitors. The activity measurement was started at 4:00 p.m. (C) Representative H and E (Hematoxylin and eosin) staining of the paraffin-embedded brain and (D) thorax of w¹¹¹⁸, 7 days after irradiation showing no structural abnormalities. (E) The graph represents intestine length measured using ImageJ. The relative length of the w¹¹¹⁸ 5 days old adult female flies 14 days after irradiating with or without 100 Gy is plotted as arbitrary units. Each dot represents one sample. (***p < 0.001 by t-test). (F) The effect of radiation on gut permeability. Smurf assay to access gut permeability was performed in w¹¹¹⁸ adult female flies 14 days after irradiating with or without 100 Gy. Results were plotted as mean percentage of ‘Smurf’ to non-smurf flies. Error bars indicate S.D. of 6 replicates. (***p < 0.001 by t-test). (G) Relative fold change in the expression of Diptericin (Dpt) and Drosomycin (Drs) in the gut and (H) fat body (FB). The results are represented as mean relative fold change in the gene expression and normalized to housekeeping gene rp49 on days 1 and 14 after irradiation (100 Gy), demonstrating local and systemic inflammation. (***p < 0.001 by t-test).