Figure 7. Plasmatocyte subpopulations exhibit distinct localisations and dynamics as adults age.

(a–e) Representative lateral images of adult flies between 0 and 6 weeks of age showing localisation of cells labelled using srpHemo-3x-mCherry (a, positive control), or split GAL4 to drive expression of stinger (b-e, srpHemo-AD;VT-DBD). The VT enhancers used to drive expression of the DNA-binding domain (DBD) of GAL4 correspond to VT17559 (b), VT32897 (c), VT57089 (d), and VT62766 (e); inset images show alternative view of proboscis region from same fly (a) or at a reduced level of brightness to reveal cellular detail (d). Images contrast enhanced to 0.15% saturation (a–c, e) or 0.75% (d) to reveal localisation of labelled cells due to differing intensities of reporter line expression. Arrows in top row indicate hemocytes in the legs; 2nd and 3rd rows show close-up of thorax and abdomen of day one flies; at least five flies were imaged for each timepoint; scale bars represent 500 μm. (f) Scatterplot showing proportion of cells dissected from day one adults that were labelled using srpHemo-AD and the VT-DBD transgenes indicated to drive expression from UAS-stinger. One-way ANOVA used to compare to negative control flies (w¹¹¹⁸;UAS-stinger/+) with split GAL4 VT lines: n = 5 dissections per genotype; p=0.60 (VT17559), p=0.013 (VT32897), p<0.0001 (VT57089), and p=0.0063 (VT62766). Lines and error bars represent mean and standard deviation, respectively; ns, *, ** and **** denote not significant (p>0.05), p<0.05, p<0.01, and p<0.0001, respectively. See Supplementary file 1 for full list of genotypes.