Kindly suggest me some tips or precautions to avoid fungal contamination in Drosophila culture tubes. In my case contamination persists even after flipping of flies, and contamination seriously affects growth of larvae.
Regards
Asif
You can use Methylparaben (or Nipagin M) - it is commonly used in Drosophila food media.
Thanks Marco
We already have added anti fungal agent in food media, and i don't want to increase the dosage, as it can negatively affect the growth.
Any precaution while setting up crosses, or flipping? or some other things which i should be careful about while dealing with culture tubes?
You may have severe fungal contamination. Otherwise it is not a big problem if you have nipagin in food. Do you have this problem in a particular line or every line?
Every step during media preparation should be carefully checked. The first and very important part is sterilization of culture vials. Secondly, allow the media to cook properly (boil at least for 5 minutes). Make sure that your anti fungal agent is functional (do not use very old one). When you keep the prepared media vials for air drying cover them with appropriate sterile cotton plug.
Manish Jaiswal, As i have just started working with flies and almost all my crosses are getting contaminated. Ya i agree that these lines may be prone to contamination. Also is it possible that this contamination is carried away when we set up new cross or flip flies from contaminated vial?
Thanks
try Flipping your crosses, every 2-3 days and your stocks also more frequently.. flip without banging, just let them crawl down.. plus you should clean the incubators thoroughly!
Beside all useful suggestions by Muhammad Haddadi and Deniz Ertekin, Nipagin and propionic acid in appropriate proportion is the best combination,in my experience.
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