Abstract
To develop and reproduce, animals need long-chain MUFAs and PUFAs. Although some unsaturated FAs (UFAs) can be synthesized by the organism, others must be provided by the diet. The gene, desat1, involved in Drosophila melanogaster UFA metabolism, is necessary for both larval development and for adult sex pheromone communication. We first characterized desat1 expression in larval tissues. Then, we found that larvae in which desat1 expression was knocked down throughout development died during the larval stages when raised on standard food. By contrast pure MUFAs or PUFAs, but not saturated FAs, added to the larval diet rescued animals to adulthood with the best effect being obtained with oleic acid (C18:1). Male and female mating behavior and fertility were affected very differently by preimaginal UFA-rich diet. Adult diet also strongly influenced several aspects of reproduction: flies raised on a C18:1-rich diet showed increased mating performance compared with flies raised on standard adult diet. Therefore, both larval and adult desat1 expression control sex-specific mating signals. A similar nutrigenetics approach may be useful in other metabolic mutants to uncover cryptic effects otherwise masked by severe developmental defects.
Highlights
To develop and reproduce, animals need longchain MUFAs and PUFAs
A good picture of nutrigenetic conservation is provided by a peculiar dietary treatment (“Lorenzo oil,” a mixture of unsaturated FA (UFA)), which can partially cure adrenoleukodystrophy, a fatal X chromosome-linked brain disease resulting in the accumulation of very long chain FAs (VLCFAs) [17]
A FA-rich diet can rescue a genetic defect related to abnormal FA processing in Drosophila, and such a diet has already been used to prevent neurodegeneration [in a VLCFA mutant [18]] and to rescue adult viability [in a Drosophila sterol regulatory element-binding protein mutant [25]]
Summary
Animals need longchain MUFAs and PUFAs. some unsaturated FAs (UFAs) can be synthesized by the organism, others must be provided by the diet. Adult diet strongly influenced several aspects of reproduction: flies raised on a C18:1-rich diet showed increased mating performance compared with flies raised on standard adult diet Both larval and adult desat expression control sex-specific mating signals. The high genetic conservation between Drosophila melanogaster and vertebrates makes it a valuable experimental model organism to study metabolic functions, including lipid metabolism [7, 13, 14], with some limitation [15] This invertebrate species, which is suitable to study the relationship between nutriments and gene function (“nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics”), is used as a translational model [16]. A Drosophila type of Lorenzo oil made with UFAs can cure an adrenoleukodystrophyrelated neuronal degenerative model in the fly [18]
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