Effects of Oral Morphine on the Larvae, Pupae and Imago Development in Drosophila Melanogaster

Previous studies, focusing on the effects of abused drugs, have used mice or rats as the main animal models; the present study tries to introduce a simple animal model. For this propose, we investigated the effects of oral morphine consumption by parents on the development of larvae, pupae and imago in Drosophila Melanogaster (D. Melanogaster). In this experimental study, twenty male and 20 female D. Melanogaster pupae were housed in test tubes with banana (5 pupae /tube). Male and female groups each were divided into three experimental group and one control group, which were maintained at 25°C. Morphine (0.2, 0.02, 0.002 mg/ml) was added into the test tubes of the experimental groups. The control group maintained at morphine-free test tube. The male and female groups with the same treatment were coupled and then female fertilization, egg deposit, larval, pupae and imago stages were studied macro and microscopically. The SPSS software (version 9.01) was used for statistical evaluations. In the experimental groups, in the larvae stage, both increase and decrease of length and surface area in the pupae stage were observed. The number of larvae pupae, and imago was reduced in the experimental groups. The study showed that oral morphine consumption by parents may affect the development of larvae, pupation and imago stages in D. Melanogaster. The results also showed that D. Melanogaster may be a reliable animal model to study on the concerns about abused drugs especially those with opioids.