Do plants sleep at night time? Just like fruit flies, can we study circadian rhythm in Phyllanthus too?

CUBE chat
#1

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Today we discussed about sleep wake cycle (Circadian Rhythm) in plant to be more specific in Phyllanthus where @⁨Theertha⁩ from Kozhikode and @⁨Abhijeet⁩ from Navi-Mumbai compared the time, when leaf of phyllanthus plant opens and closes

:four_leaf_clover:Well, Circardian rhythm is a term derived from the Latin phrase “circa diem,” meaning “about a day”

:four_leaf_clover:Where they also compared it with fruit fly circadian rhythm and discussed about noble prize winning research done in 2017 by Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.” Where they found out that it’s period gene that is involved in this cycle

:four_leaf_clover:This explains about the circardian rthythm in Fruitfly, that Period Protein (PER protein ) Which accumulate in night (Fruitfly less active in night ) and degraded in Day (Active in night)this cause biological rthythm in the activity pattern of Fruitfly.

:four_leaf_clover:Also a worry was shared… As you can see the white board that only two Fruitflies were active in night. Then why only two flies are active at night is there something special about this Fruitfly . Jaikishan sir shared that, it can be a mutant.

:four_leaf_clover:Then we discussed about mutants, and talk about how we can make more mutants from a Single fly by making single line cultures

So I wasn’t there in ChatShaala since beginning I came in middle so this is a summary by @⁨Theertha⁩ and me as she helped in writing this

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#3

What can be the experimental design to find out mutants of fruit flies which are awake at night?

#4

If you’re asking about how to find out circardian mutants of fruit flies then I think this can be a experimental design…

Aim- To check if fruit files trapped after 12 am are mutant for circadian rhythm

Objective- To observe activity pattern of 2 different type of fruit fly in every 3 hour.

Research question- How do we check if the fruit files trapped after 12 am are mutant for circadian rhythm? which type of mutant, long day, short day Or arrhythmic?

Hypothesis-
Flies trapped during day: will be active for 14 hrs a day
Flies trapped after midnight: will be active for about 18 hours a day

Material-
2 culture bottles with media.
One bottle should have fly trapped at midnight, another should have flies trapped during day
A empty box where u can keep bottle to give them full dark, for 12 hours
Camera too click pictures

Method:

  1. Take a picture of the bottle
  2. Wait for five minutes
  3. Again take a picture and compare both the pictures if all are at some position or different…
    Same position = they are sleeping
    Different position = they are awake

Precautions
Don’t move the bottles
Take pictures from same position…
Conditions- kept 12 hours in laght then 12 hr in dark

Design-
Observe flies in interval of every 3 hours
Keep the setup 12 hrs in light and 12 hours in dark
Altogether we will take 9 observations a day

Expectations-
Flies trapped during day: will be active during day time 7 am - 9 pm and will be inactive after 9pm till morning 7
Flies trapped after midnight: will be active from 7 am - 2 am, will be inactive from 2 am - 7 am and might take naps during late afternoon or early evening time for 15 - 20 mins

Problem:
I mostly shake setup or sometimes bottle while taking observation that wakes up the flies inside

Solution-??

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