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Relating past and present diet to phenotypic and transcriptomic variation in the fruit fly
Christina M May1, Bas J Zwaan2
1Laboratory of Genetics, Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 6708, PB, the Netherlands. may.christina.m@gmail.com.
BMC Genomics
|August 24, 2017
Summary
Developmental diet in fruit flies does not harm long-term fitness, even with environmental mismatches. Persistent gene expression changes, particularly in ribosomal and transcription genes, correlate with lifespan, suggesting a role in aging.
Area of Science:
- Developmental biology
- Genetics
- Aging research
Background:
- Sub-optimal diets during development can impact long-term health.
- Developmental-adult environmental mismatches are hypothesized to mediate these effects via gene expression changes.
- Experimental validation of this hypothesis is limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of developmental and adult diet on fruit fly life history and gene expression.
- To test the hypothesis that environmental mismatches during development affect long-term fitness.
- To identify persistent gene expression changes related to developmental diet.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a fully factorial design varying diet during fruit fly development and adulthood.
- Assessed adult life history traits (lifespan, fecundity).
- Analyzed gene expression in middle and old-aged flies.
Main Results:
- No evidence found that developmental-adult diet mismatches are detrimental to lifespan or fecundity.
- Developmental and adult diets had largely independent effects on lifespan and gene expression, with adult diet being more influential.
- Developmental diet induced persistent transcriptome changes into old age, with specific ribosomal, transcription, and translation-related genes negatively correlating with lifespan.
Conclusions:
- Decreased expression of ribosomal and transcription-related proteins, linked to increased lifespan in other studies, are potential mediators of larval diet effects.
- Findings support theories linking developmental conditions to late-life phenotypes.
- Gene expression differences from developmental exposures may causally relate to adult aging phenotypes.
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