From owner-drosophila@net.bio.net Wed Oct 05 23:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!newsserver.cshl.org!newsserver.cshl.org!news From: bolwig@cshl.org (Gert Bolwig) Newsgroups: bionet.drosophila Subject: Re: Mite Infestation Date: 6 Oct 1994 01:58:47 GMT Organization: C.S.H. Laboratory, Long Island, New York, USA Lines: 72 Sender: bolwig@phage.cshl.org Message-ID: <36vlknINNii2@phage.cshl.org> References: <9410010037.AA104066@acc.wuacc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pandora.cshl.org X-Posted-From: InterNews 1.0.1@davis-lc.cshl.org X-Authenticated: bolwig on POP host phage.cshl.org pab6awd@leeds.ac.uk (A.J. DAVIS) writes: > In article <9410010037.AA104066@acc.wuacc.edu> zzwolf@ACC.WUACC.EDU (wolf tom) writes: > >I am teaching a genetics laboratory and the stocks have become infested > >with mites. ... > Yes mites are a time consuming problem and no there isn't a simple solution. > The only reliable stratagy is rigorous quarentine. Most stock centers are > infected and in any cases it's always best to assume that they are. ...I agree, you should assume the worst. Keep recent arrivals in a seperate room for that purpose (an office will do fine). The vials should be surrounded by a sea of soapy water in a tub. Soap will reduce the surface tension of the water and prevent the mites from walking on it. > There are products and methods which will reduce infection risk but my > technician refuses to tell me the details unless i pay the usual consultancy > fees for such information - yep- Universities are getting commercial - sorry. ...Oh...well...I'll give you some FREE advice: * Completely clean out your fly maintenance room and incubators * Flip your stocks regularly--every 21 days at room temp! * Keep everything--every vial and bottle--surrounded by soapy water for several generations * If you have relatively few stocks, it will be very efficient to hand-clean the flies under magnification. You will have to remove both adult mites (small, pale and eight-legged) and their eggs (very small, pale, shiny "super-elliptical" objects) and then move the flies to a new *mite-free* vial. Get at least 25 of each sex. Repeat for several generations to play it safe... * We have had some success with treating the flies with [2, 4, 4', 5-tetrachlorodiphenyl sulfone] ("TEDION"). Dissolve four gram in one hundred mililiters acetone and spray lightly it on strips of cellu-cotton (or beefy papertowel). Try 50 cm X 50 cm X 100 cm worth of very fluffed strips/100 ml. Fluff them frequently whilst spraying. Do not breathe the acetone soln., and handle the strips with gloves. I don't know what it does to humans. Place a strip in each bottle for several generations. It may only affect certain developmental stages of the mites. Test if your genotypes can tolerate the stuff. We got some [2, 4, 4', 5-tetrachlorodiphenyl sulfone] from the Sigma-Aldrich library of rare chemicals. P.O. box 335. Milwaukee. WI 53201. USA. Phone 414-273-3850 * make sure your fly food is mite free and stays that way. Keep it at 4 C. * All these efforts work best if everyone is doing it at the same time * The best way of dealing with this problem is to not get mites in the first place, so keep your stocks carefully once you get rid of the "visitors". I cannot promise you that the above will help, but I hope it does. There are numerous species of mites; you should take a look in a D.m. book e.g. Ashburner's. Tedion may not work on your strains. Good luck and greetings from Cold Spring Harbor Lab on sunny Long Island, New York Gert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gert Bolwig Long Island; New York; USA I do not represent Cold Spring Harbor Lab. I just work there. .