3D movie captures fruit fly embryo turning into larva

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

You can now watch a fruit fly embryo turn into a larva without missing any of the action. Thanks to a new microscope created by Lars Hufnagel and his team at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, individual cells throughout a developing animal can now be filmed to create a high quality 3D movie of the process.

This 2D version of the film shows how the new microscope captures the fruit fly from all angles. If you've got your red and blue 3D glasses handy, you can also watch the anaglyphic version of the movie.

The time-lapse follows the embryo from about two hours old until it walks away 20 hours later, highlighting key stages of its development. Cells dive into the embryo's belly before separating into three layers prior to organ formation. Later, cells move around the rear of the embryo to its back and an opening on the dorsal side is filled in by surrounding cells.

This dynamic view of developing cells beats current microscope techniques, in which only one side of a living sample can be illuminated at once. To construct a 3D view from these shots, each side must be captured alternately, missing out on crucial details during the rapid changes in the cells.

The new microscope will be useful for investigating how organs and tissues form in different animals and what goes wrong as a result of mutations.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the first film of a fruit fly embryo or watch a 3D digital animation of a zebrafish embryo that tracks the first 24 hours after fertilisation.

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