Dataset Information

Pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in Drosophila melanogaster infected with bacteria.

ABSTRACT: The activation of the immune system upon infection exerts a huge energetic demand on an individual, likely decreasing available resources for other vital processes, like reproduction. The factors that determine the trade-off between defensive and reproductive traits remain poorly understood. Here, we exploit the experimental tractability of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to systematically assess the impact of immune system activation on pre-copulatory reproductive behaviour. Contrary to expectations, we found that male flies undergoing an immune activation continue to display high levels of courtship and mating success. Similarly, immune-challenged female flies remain highly sexually receptive. By combining behavioural paradigms, a diverse panel of pathogens and genetic strategies to induce the fly immune system, we show that pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in infected flies, despite the significant metabolic cost of infection.

SUBMITTER: Rose S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9091859 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> infected with bacteria.

Rose Saloni S Beckwith Esteban J EJ Burmester Charlotte C May Robin C RC Dionne Marc S MS Rezaval Carolina C

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20220511 1974

The activation of the immune system upon infection exerts a huge energetic demand on an individual, likely decreasing available resources for other vital processes, like reproduction. The factors that determine the trade-off between defensive and reproductive traits remain poorly understood. Here, we exploit the experimental tractability of the fruit fly <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> to systematically assess the impact of immune system activation on pre-copulatory reproductive behaviour. Contra ...[more]

PMID: 35538789

Similar Datasets

Project description:Fluctuating environments threaten fertility and viability. To better match the immediate, local environment, many organisms adopt alternative phenotypic states, a phenomenon called "phenotypic plasticity." Natural populations that predictably encounter fluctuating environments tend to be more plastic than conspecific populations that encounter a constant environment, suggesting that phenotypic plasticity can be adaptive. Despite pervasive evidence of such "adaptive phenotypic plasticity," gene regulatory mechanisms underlying plasticity remains poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that environment-dependent phenotypic plasticity is mediated by epigenetic factors. To test this hypothesis, we exploit the adaptive reproductive arrest of Drosophila melanogaster females, called diapause. Using an inbred line from a natural population with high diapause plasticity, we demonstrate that diapause is determined epigenetically: only a subset of genetically identical individuals enter diapause and this diapause plasticity is epigenetically transmitted for at least three generations. Upon screening a suite of epigenetic marks, we discovered that the active histone marks H3K4me3 and H3K36me1 are depleted in diapausing ovaries. Using ovary-specific knockdown of histone mark writers and erasers, we demonstrate that H3K4me3 and H3K36me1 depletion promotes diapause. Given that diapause is highly polygenic, that is, distinct suites of alleles mediate diapause plasticity across distinct genotypes, we also investigated the potential for genetic variation in diapause-determining epigenetic marks. Specifically, we asked if these histone marks were similarly depleted in diapause of a genotypically distinct line. We found evidence of divergence in both the gene expression program and histone mark abundance. This study reveals chromatin determinants of phenotypic plasticity and suggests that these determinants may be genotype-dependent, offering new insight into how organisms may exploit and evolve epigenetic mechanisms to persist in fluctuating environments.

Dataset Information

Pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in Drosophila melanogaster infected with bacteria.

Publications

Pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> infected with bacteria.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets