Oxygenation and adenosine deaminase support growth and proliferation of ex vivo cultured Drosophila wing imaginal discs

Abstract

The Drosophila wing imaginal disc has been an important model system over the past decades for discovering novel biology related to development, signaling, and epithelial morphogenesis. Novel experimental approaches would be enabled by a culturing setup allowing ex vivo cultures of wing discs. Current setups, however, are not able to sustain both growth and cell-cycle progression of wing discs ex vivo. We discover here a setup requiring both oxygenation of the tissue and adenosine deaminase activity in the medium, which supports both growth and proliferation of wing discs for 9 hours. Nonetheless, further work will be required to extend the duration of the culturing and to enable live imaging of the cultured discs in the future.