Stock-Keeping Service

Drosophila Stock-Keeping Service

Stock2

We provide a Drosophila stock-keeping service for UK fly groups. Each stock is kept in two synchronous tubes at 18oC which are transferred to new food every 5 weeks (i.e. 10 transfers/year). The health of each stock is checked at the time of transfer and weak stocks are moved to 25oC and monitored closely until they recover.

In special circumstances, we will keep collections of fly stocks as a single stock tube for a short period of time. This might be useful for groups that are screening a fly library, for example. However, stocks kept in a single tube are more vunerable to being lost so this is not an appropriate strategy for long-term stock maintenance.

Requesting stocks from your collection

We can provide flies from stocks in your collection to a member of your research group at any time during the working week. Please email a request to: flyadmin@gen.cam.ac.uk (this address reaches Simon Collier and Glynnis Johnson). We wil normally be able to provide flies to you within 24 hours.

We will also mail stocks from your collection to your collaborators free of charge. Please contact flyadmin@gen.cam.ac.uk to let us know which stocks to send, and provide us with your collaborator's address.

Guidelines for submitting flies to our stock-keeping service

Ideally, you will supply two healthy synchronous tubes for each fly stock. Please ensure that the stocks you send us are free of mite, fungal or bacterial infection. Upon receiving the stocks we will take them through our standard two-generation quarantine procedure. However, be aware that it is not our job to clean up your stocks and we reserve the right to reject stocks that have significant mite (or other) infestations. After you have given your stocks to us, please maintain copies in your own lab until we are sure that they have survived the transition to our facility.

Please provide us with a list (preferably an excel file) of the fly stocks that you are submitting. Useful information includes:

  • Full genotype
  • Stock description (a condensed genotype or other short description)
  • Origin - e.g. Stock centre number or lab of origin

If you do not have a unique numbering system for your stocks, we may assign our own stock numbers (which we will share with you). This will make requests for stocks more straightforward to handle.

Please note: We occasionally receive requests for Drosophila stocks and reserve the right to search your collection for these stocks. However, we will not give out information about your stock collection or distribute any of your fly stocks without first seeking your permission.