Drosophila shares
maximum homology with the human
disease-causing genes and thus has been employed to evaluate the toxicity
of numerous compounds. Further, its distinguishable developmental
stages, easy rearing, and short lifespan make it a perfect model organism
to study toxicological properties of any new compound. The current
study evaluates the toxic effect of a coumarin-based organic fluorescent
dye, 7-hydroxy-4-methyl-8-((4-(2-oxo-2H-chromen-3-yl)thiazol-2-ylimino)methyl)-2H-chromen-2-one (CTC), using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism by studying
different behavioral, screening, and staining techniques using Oregon-R flies. For toxicity assessment, one control fly
group was compared with various flies that had been subjected to fed CTC dye orally of different concentrations (0.5, 1, 2.5, and
5 μg/mL). The 3rd instar larvae were checked for the larvae
crawling assay. The crawling assay demonstrates that the speed and
path of the treated larvae are almost equal to the control ones, which
signifies the non-neurotoxic property of CTC. Trypan
blue assay further suggested that the dye does not cause any major
damage to the gut. Phalloidin staining revealed that the actin composition
remains unaltered even after the CTC treatment, while
the DAPI staining experiment indicates that CTC does
not cause any nuclear damage to fly gut cells. However, at a concentration
of 5 μg/mL, CTC causes developmental delay. The
flies hatched after larval treatment of CTC do not show
any structural defects, suggesting clearly that CTC is
also nongenotoxic to Drosophila. The current studies
propose CTC as a noncytotoxic and nongenotoxic dye to
track actin protein in the model organism D. melanogaster.