The effects of inorganic Arsenic dosage on Drosophila melanogaster third instar larvae motility
Anushree, Md Zeeshan Ali and *Jawaid Ahsan
aDrosophila Behavioral Laboratory Department of Biotechnology, Central University of South Bihar (CUSB) Gaya- 824 236 (India) Anushree (0000-0002-7420-0019) Md Zeeshan Ali (0000-0002-2101-1695) *Corresponding author: Jawaid Ahsan (0000-0002-2977-9922) Phone: +91- 8521627799 E-mail: jahsan@cub.ac.in
ABSTRACT
Arsenic is a primary environmental toxin that has a considerable detrimental influence on 300 million people and poses a major concern for people worldwide. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system is used to explore arsenic response pathways due to available robust behavioral assays and similarity to humans at different levels. The fruit fly larvae are even simpler and could be used a good model for toxicity assays. In this study, the toxic effects of inorganic arsenic on the locomotory ability of Drosophila third-instar larvae were investigated. The study was divided into two groups; the first batch of larvae served as the arsenic treated group and received exposure at doses of 1 mM and 1.5 mM arsenic and the second group of larvae were untreated which served as control group. The locomotory activity in both treated and untreated larvae was monitored in a time dependant manner. A significant reduction in the locomotory ability of the treated third instar larvae was observed with increasing concentration of arsenic. The findings of this study reveal the toxic effect of inorganic arsenic on larval motility.